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THE  LIFE  OF MF 


PERKINS 


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THE  LIFE  OF  THE 
HONOURABLE  MRS.  NORTON 


BY 


JANE  GRAY  PERKINS 


WITH   PORTRAITS 


^    OF 

UNiVF 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1909 


M5 


P4 

NOTE 

For  the  materials  which  make  the  foundation  of  this 
biography  my  thanks  are  due  first  to  members  of  Mrs. 
Norton's  own  family — her  grandson,  Lord  Grantley, 
whose  permission  made  it  possible  for  me  to  use 
her  letters,  both  those  already  published  and  those 
which  appear  for  the  first  time  in  these  pages ; 
her  granddaughter,  the  Hon.  Carlotta  Norton  ;  her 
niece,  Lady  Guendolen  Ramsden ;  and  Mrs.  Sheridan 
of  Frampton  Court;  whose  personal  recollections  of 
Mrs.  Norton  and  kind  hospitality  in  letting  me  see 
certain  scrap-books  and  MSS.  and  family  pictures 
have  greatly  aided  me  in  my  work. 

I  must  also  thank  the  directors  of  the  Library  in  the 
British  Museum  for  their  courtesy  in  allowing  me  the 
privileges  of  this  invaluable  collection,  at  a  time  when 
the  condition  of  the  building,  while  undergoing  repairs, 
might  have  furnished  adequate  excuse  for  denying 
those  privileges  to  the  passing  stranger  certainly,  if 
not  to  the  regular  reader. 

I  wish  also  to  express  my  obligations  to  Mr.  Murray, 
who  kindly  allowed  me  to  use  several  hitherto  unpub- 
lished letters  from  Mrs.  Norton  to  his  grandfather 
written  between  the  years  1834-8. 

For  the  great  mass  of  my  material,  however,  I  find 
it  difficult  to  make  any  adequate  acknowledgment, 
so  rich  and  so  varied  is  the  treasure  which  English 


194223 


vi  NOTE 

writers  of  biography  and  letters  have  expended  upon 
the  period  and  personages  especially  included  in  this 
biography. 

But  I  can  at  least  thank  those  publishers  who  have 
been  most  zealous  to  provide  the  supply  from  which  I 
have  obtained  the  greater  number  of  the  letters  and  an 
even  greater  part  of  the  facts  on  which  this  book 
depends.  I  wish  especially  to  mention  in  this  connec- 
tion my  own  publisher  (Mr.  John  Murray  of  Albemarle 
Street),  Messrs.  Longman,  Green  &  Co.,  Messrs.  Mac- 
millan,  Messrs.  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  and  Sir  Isaac 
Pitman. 

J.   G.    P. 

August,   1909. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

NOTE v 


INTRODUCTION xiii 

CHAPTER   I 

BIRTH    AND    SCHOOLDAYS — GEORGE    NORTON         .  .  I 

CHAPTER   II 

MARRIAGE II 

CHAPTER   III 

"THE  SORROWS  OF  ROSALIE" — "THE  UNDYING  ONE  " 

— "  SOCIAL   SUCCESSES  " 21 

CHAPTER   IV 
LITERATURE   AND    POLITICS 37 


CHAPTER  V 

GEORGE   NORTON — FAMILY   LETTERS  ....         48 
vii  b 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  VI 

PAGE 

TRIP   ABROAD— BRINSLEY'S   MARRIAGE  .  .  -58 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   WIFE — MRS.    NORTON   LEAVES   HER   HUSBAND        .         JO 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE     MELBOURNE     TRIAL — HER    STRUGGLE    FOR    THE 
POSSESSION    OF    HER    CHILDREN    . 


CHAPTER   IX 

EFFORTS   TO   MAKE    HER   OWN  LIVING — A  VOICE  FROM 

THE    FACTORIES IO4 


CHAPTER   X 
THE   ENGLISH    LAW — ACCESSION   OF   QUEEN   VICTORIA       I  19 

CHAPTER   XI 
THE    INFANT  CUSTODY    BILL 130 

CHAPTER   XII 

INFANT  CUSTODY  BILL — HER  LETTER  TO  THE  LORD 

CHANCELLOR — VISIT  TO  ITALY  .     .     .     .   1 48 

CHAPTER  XIII 

PETITION    TO     THE     LORD    CHANCELLOR — DEATH     OF 

WILLIAM 159 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   XIV 


THE    DREAM — THE  CHILD  OF  THE  ISLANDS — FISHERS 

DRAWING-ROOM   SCRAP    BOOK        .  .  .  .174 


CHAPTER  XV 

NEW  FRIENDS — KINGLAKE — THE  DUFF  GORDONS — 
SIDNEY  HERBERT — THE  REPEAL  OF  THE  CORN 
LAWS — RELATIONS   WITH    HER   CHILDREN     .  .       19] 


CHAPTER   XVI 

NEW     QUARREL     WITH     HER     HUSBAND — FLETCHER'S 

ILLNESS — DEATH   OF    LORD   MELBOURNE         .  .       2o6 


CHAPTER   XVII 

STIRLING   OF    KEIR — "  STUART     OF     DUNLEATH  "  .      21 5 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

LIFE   ABROAD— LAST   QUARREL   WITH    HER   HUSBAND       225 

CHAPTER   XIX 

PAMPHLET    ON     "  ENGLISH    LAWS    FOR   WOMEN  "    AND 

"  LETTER   TO   THE   QUEEN  "  ....       238 

CHAPTER    XX 
BRINSLEY'S   MARRIAGE — A   LONDON   SEASON  .  .252 

CHAPTER  XXI 

DEATH  OF  FLETCHER—"  THE  LADY  OF  LA  GARAYE  " 

— "  LOST  AND  SAVED  " 264 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XXII 

PAGE 

LAST  YEARS — DEATH  OF  GEORGE  NORTON— SECOND 

MARRIAGE — DEATH 283 

LIST  OF  MRS.  NORTON'S  WRITINGS  .  .  299 
LIST  OF  MRS.  NORTON'S  SONGS  .  .  .300 
INDEX 303 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

MRS.  Norton Frontispiece 

After  the  painting  by  John  Hayter  (photogravure). 

FACING   PAGE 

MRS.    NORTON 2° 

From  a  lithograph  at  Chatsworth. 

MRS.    NORTON 4^ 

After  the  portrait  by  John  Hayter. 

MRS.    NORTON 7^ 

From  a  pen-and-ink  sketch. 

MRS.    NORTON 174 

From  an  engraving  by  F.  C.  Lewis,  after  the  drawing  by  Sir  Edwin  Landseer,  R.  A. 

MRS.    SHERIDAN 214 

From  the  drawing  by  John  Hayter  (photogravure). 


MRS.    NORTON       .... 
From  a  drawing  by  Mrs.  Munro-Ferguson. 


MRS.    NORTON 
From  a  bust. 


258 
296 


INTRODUCTION 

Mrs.  Norton  is  a  personage  whose  reputation  as 
a  poetess  and  a  writer  stood  much  higher  among 
our  grandmothers  than  it  does  to-day.  To-day,  in- 
deed, the  greater  part  of  her  writing  is  so  much 
out  of  fashion  as  to  be  nearly  out  of  print,  and  she 
herself  is  considered  less  as  an  author  than  as  a 
beautiful,  unfortunate  woman,  the  target  of  a  great 
deal  of  cruel  scandal,  ill  remembered,  but  never  quite 
forgotten. 

Her  poetry,  perhaps,  deserves  its  fate ;  it  is,  indeed, 
too  intimate  a  part  of  herself,  too  dependent  on 
the  passing  glamour  of  her  beauty,  to  be  expected 
to  survive  her.  But  her  novels  deserve  another 
chance ;  and  on  this  score  more  consideration  is 
due  to  her  than  has  been  accorded  by  her  own 
generation.  And  the  lyric  touch,  too  often  wanting 
in  her  verses,  is  never  lacking  in  her  life ;  her  own 
story,  told  in  her  own  dramatic  words,  is  her  real 
contribution  to  the  literature  of  her  century.  This 
story,  though  often  told  in  part,  and  too  often 
obscured  or  exaggerated  by  half-truths  or  whole 
scandals,  has  never  yet  been  fairly  or  adequately 
narrated. 

And  yet  it  would  seem  that  no  survey  of  English 
social  and  literary  conditions  during  the  first  fifty 
years  of  the  nineteenth   century  could   be   complete 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

without  it.  The  generous,  woman's  influence  has  left 
too  deep  a  mark,  not  only  on  the  men  and  manners, 
but  upon  the  very  laws  of  her  time,  to  let  her  be 
entirely  forgotten.  She  can  never  be  forgotten,  if 
only  because  the  mere  tradition  of  her  is  so  deeply 
embedded  in  the  literary  remains  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

It  is  only  fair,  then,  that  she  should  be  adequately 
remembered,  not  only  for  her  misfortunes,  but  for 
the  real  service  she  rendered  to  her  own  kind,  the 
gallant  fight  she  waged  against  most  cruel  con- 
ditions— conditions  which  her  own  extraordinary 
experience,  her  passionate  energy  of  resistance,  did 
much  to  make  impossible,  almost  inconceivable  to-day. 

The  following  pages  are  an  effort  to  render  justice 
to  her ;  to  give  her  something  like  her  real  value 
among  people  to  whom  her  name  and  the  poorest 
part  of  her  fame  are  already  vaguely  familiar. 


LIFE    OF    MRS.    NORTON 

CHAPTER   I 

BIRTH  AND  SCHOOLDAYS — GEORGE  NORTON 

The  subject  of  this  biography  was  the  third  child 
of  Tom  Sheridan  ;  and  therefore  a  granddaughter  of 
the  great  Sheridan  by  his  first  wife,  the  beautiful  Miss 
Linley,  whose  almost  impossible  loveliness  has  been 
preserved  for  us  to  this  day  by  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  paintings  of  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough. 

Tom  Sheridan's  wife  was  a  Scotswoman ;  her 
parents  were  James  Callander  of  Craigforth,  after- 
wards Campbell  of  Ardkinglass,  Argyllshire,  and  his 
third  wife,  the  Lady  Elizabeth  Macdonnell,  sister  of 
the  Earl  of  Antrim,  an  Irish  peer. 

She  had  probably  met  her  young  husband  first  in 
Edinburgh,  where  he  was  stationed  for  some  years  on 
the  staff  of  the  Earl  of  Moira,  but  on  their  marriage, 
in  November  1805,  they  came  to  live  in  London 
(Charlotte  Street,  Fitzroy  Square),  where  their  elder 
children  were  born.  The  great  Sheridan  was  then  at 
the  height  of  his  fortune,  having  passionately  mourned 
but  quickly  recovered  from  the  loss  of  his  beautiful 
first  wife,  and  married  again,  in  1795,  a  woman  much 
younger  than  himself,  Miss  Esther  Ogle,  daughter  of 
the  Dean  of  Winchester,  by  whom  he  had  a  second 
son,  Charles,  born  January  14,  1796.  This  second 
connection,    however,    did    not    interfere    with     his 

1 


2  BIRTH  AND   SCHOOLDAYS  [chap,  i 

interest    in   his   "  grandchicks,"   as   he    called   Tom's 
children. 

The  eldest  of  these  was  a  boy,  named  Richard 
Brinsley,  after  him.  Next  came  Helen,  born  1807, 
followed  by  Caroline,  the  second  daughter,  born 
March  22,  1808.  This  date,  at  least,  seems  to  me 
most  likely  to  be  the  correct  one,  though  there  are 
two  others  given  by  family  authority:  1809,  according 
to  Lord  Dufferin  in  his  Life  of  his  mother,  Helen 
Sheridan,  and  18 10,  found  in  records  left  by  Mrs. 
Norton's  second  husband,  Sir  William  Stirling- 
Maxwell. 

The  family  tradition  has  it  that  Mrs.  Norton  was 
a  queer,  dark-looking,  little  baby,  with  quantities  of 
black  hair.  There  is  a  story  of  her,  at  three  years 
old,  brought  in  and  set  up  on  a  table  to  be  shown  off 
to  her  grandfather,  the  great  Sheridan  ;  sitting  there 
frightened  out  of  her  wits,  staring  at  him  with  enor- 
mous black  eyes,  with  her  hair  half  concealing  her 
face,  till  at  last  he  gave  utterance  upon  her  :  "  Well, 
that  is  not  a  child  I  would  care  to  meet  in  a  dark 
wood ! " 

By  that  time,  however,  her  family's  fortune  was 
somewhat  in  eclipse.  On  February  24,  1809,  the  old 
Drury  Lane  Theatre  was  destroyed  by  fire,  and  with 
it  the  greater  part  of  her  father's  income  and  her 
grandfather's  possessions.  And  very  soon  after  she 
was  born,  Tom  Sheridan  began  to  show  signs  of  the 
fatal  disease  inherited  from  his  beautiful  mother.  All 
the  later  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  a  vain  search 
for  health,  a  winter  in  Ireland,  a  year  in  Malta,  till  at 
last,  in  the  autumn  of  1813,  he  was  appointed,  through 
the  influence  of  his  father's  old  friend,  the  Duke  of 
York,  to  a  colonial  secretaryship  at  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  which  he  accepted  in  a  vain  belief  that  the 
climate  would  save,  or  at  least  prolong,  his  life.  His 
wife  and  eldest  daughter,  afterwards  Lady  Dufferin, 
accompanied  him  on  this  mission.  The  other  children, 
all  very  little,  were  left  behind  in  Scotland,  at  Ard- 


1817J  DEATH   OF  TOM  SHERIDAN  3 

kinglass,  their  mother's  old  home,  in  the  care  of  their 
mother's  two  unmarried  sisters,  Georgiana  and  Fanny, 
afterwards  the  wife  of  Sir  James  Graham. 

It  happens,  therefore,  that  many  of  Mrs.  Norton's 
earliest  memories  and  associations  were  connected 
with'  Scotland,  a  land  which  she  knew  and  loved 
better  than  either  England  or  Ireland,  in  spite  of  the 
sentimental  traditions  which  bound  her,  by  name  at 
least,  to  the  latter  country,  and  a  long  life  lived  largely 
in  the  former. 

Her  first  instructor  was  a  Scotsman  x  of  the  name 
of  Wilson  ;  her  first  lessons  were  shared  with  the 
young  son  of  Lord  Kinnaird,  an  old  friend  of  both  her 
father  and  mother,  whose  place  at  Glenrossie,  all 
through  her  little  childhood,  was  like  another  home. 

There  is  a  letter  of  Mrs.  Sheridan's,  written  to 
her  sisters  in  Ardkinglass  from  Madeira,  on  her  way 
to  the  Cape  with  her  husband,  describing  all  this 
little  brood  of  children  from  whom  she  was  parting  so 
reluctantly  and  so  fruitlessly  as  it  turned  out,  for  the 
appointment  at  the  Cape  had  come  too  late  to  save 
Tom  Sheridan's  life.  He  rallied  at  first,  indeed,  and 
for  a  time  his  friends  had  hopes  for  his  recovery,  but 
only  for  a  time.  He  died  on  September  12,  1816, 
leaving  his  wife  a  widow  with  seven  little  children, 
of  whom  the  youngest,  Charles,  and  probably  Frank 
were  born  at  the  Cape. 

A  letter  of  Charles  Sheridan,  senior,  always  a 
devoted  friend  to  his  half-brother's  wife  and  young 
family,  tells  of  their  return  to  England  in  the  transport 
Albion  in  the  autumn  of  18 17.  Already  he  speaks 
of  his  sister-in-law  in  terms  of  affectionate  admira- 
tion :  "  Her  life  has  been  a  course  of  unparalleled 
devotion  and  attachment  to  my  poor  brother." 

The  young  widow  set  herself  at  once  to  the  difficult 

task   of   gathering   her    little    children   together  and 

making  a   home    for    herself    and   them   out   of    the 

remnant  of  her  husband's  fortune.     Her  father-in-law 

1  Article  in  Colburn's  New  Monthly  Magazine,  1831. 


4  BIRTH  AND   SCHOOLDAYS  [chap,  i 

had  died  the  preceding  summer,  deeply  in  debt ; 
according  to  some  accounts,  in  actual  want.  But  his 
death  had  done  more  than  his  later  life,  perhaps,  to 
revive  the  glory  of  his  name.  His  old  friend  Frederick 
Duke  of  York  lost  no  time  in  presenting  his  son's 
widow  with  a  home  in  Hampton  Court. 

The  whole  west  wing  of  the  Court  was  given  up  to 
these  private  apartments,  whose  favoured  occupants, 
not  necessarily  known  to  one  another,  were  almost 
always  in  some  sort  of  relation  to  the  Royal  family. 
The  half-public,  wholly  decorous  form  of  life  necessary 
for  people  whose  home  is  in  a  royal  palace,  subject  to 
royal  visits,  the  luxury  of  space,  the  beautiful  grounds 
and  gardens,  perfectly  ordered  by  a  service  with 
which  the  occupants  had  nothing  to  do,  were  as  far 
removed  as  anything  we  can  imagine  from  the  genteel 
poverty  which  might  so  easily  have  been  the  fate  of 
the  young  Sheridans.  Here  for  several  years  the 
family  lived  together,  and  laid  the  foundations  for 
that  close  and  affectionate  companionship  so  remark- 
able in  their  later  years.  They  must  have  been  an 
unusual  group  of  children,  extraordinarily  good- 
looking,  with  dark  hair  and  glowing  colour  and 
splendid  eyes,  real  Irish  blue  as  in  the  case  of  Brinsley, 
the  eldest,  and  Georgie,  the  youngest  daughter,  after- 
wards the  beautiful  Duchess  of  Somerset ;  or  dark  as 
night,  like  Caroline's.  They  were  all  clever,  gay- 
tempered,  endowed  even  in  childhood  with  those  social 
gifts  which  distinguished  them  in  later  years. 

To  quote  again  from  the  article  I  have  already 
cited  : x 

"  They  were  even  in  the  nursery  especially  fond  of 
private  theatricals,  and  almost  every  Saturday  and 
half-holiday  was  spent  in  preparing  extemporary 
plays  ;  tragedies  were  preferred,  Turkish,  so  that  they 
might  wear  a  turband  [sic].  Five  minutes  were 
allowed  to  an  improvised   speech  to  each  actor,  and 

1  Colburn's  New  Monthly  Magazine,  1831. 


1817]  PRIVATE  THEATRICALS  5 

ten  minutes  for  Caroline  to  prepare  her  own  essays 
at  dramatic  eloquence." 

They  all  sang,  they  all  drew,  they  were  all  pre- 
cocious scribblers — in  this  last  amusement,  even  in 
those  days,  Helen  and  Caroline  usually  taking  the 
lead.  When  only  eleven  years  old  the  latter  received 
as  a  present  from  Lady  Westmorland  a  child's 
illustrated  book — one  of  a  series  called  the  Dandy 
books,  full  of  the  grotesque  adventures  of  the  beings 
so  named,  to  caricature  the  real  London  dandies 
of  that  time.  Instantly  the  two  older  girls  fell  upon 
it  and  plagiarised  it  with  sketches  and  rhymes  of  their 
own.  The  result  was  "  The  Dandies'  Rout,"  so  pre- 
cociously effective  that  a  certain  bookseller  named 
Marshall  was  willing  to  publish  it  at  the  moderate 
reward  of  fifty  gift  copies  for  the  authors.  Years 
afterwards,  looking  over  children's  picture-books  for 
her  own  little  boy,  Mrs.  Norton  was  enchanted  to  find 
one  left  over  from  this  her  first  literary  venture,  long 
out  of  print.  We  may  be  sure  the  story  never  lost  by 
her  telling  of  it. 

Henrietta  Callander,  the  mother  of  all  these  spirited, 
gifted  children,  was  herself  a  woman  of  more  than 
usual  beauty  and  intelligence :  the  first,  generally 
acknowledged;  the  second,  not  so  instantly  appreciated 
under  the  veil  of  an  excessive,  shy  reserve,  a  gentle, 
almost  timid  manner,  an  extreme  consideration  for 
every  one  about  her,  which  last  quality  however  did 
not  interfere  with  a  habit  of  discriminating  observa- 
tion of  the  people  with  whom  she  came  in  daily 
contact,  their  weaknesses,  their  inconsistencies,  their 
absurdities ;  and  she  had  the  rarer  power  of  turning 
it  all  from  mere  raw  material  into  what  one  may  call 
literary  impressions,  which  must  have  been  part  of 
the  family  inheritance  for  a  long  time  before  either 
she  or  her  more  famous  daughter  thought  of  turning 
it  into  gain. 

She  published  three  or  four  short  stories  of  fashion- 


6  BIRTH   AND   SCHOOLDAYS  [chap,  i 

able  life  (all  now  out  of  print),  all  rather  stiff  with  the 
style  of  the  late  eighteenth  century,  but  none  without 
a  certain  charm  and  wit  which  make  them  fairly  read- 
able to-day.  "  Carwell,"  her  most  ambitious  effort,  is 
in  quite  another  vein,  and  shows  real  imagination  in 
peopling  the  dark  courts  and  side-alleys  of  the  author's 
own  familiar  Westminster  with  secret  lives  and 
hazards  ;  and  a  real  knowledge  and  sympathy  with 
the  sufferings  and  conditions  of  the  poor. 

Her  daughter  Caroline  thus  perpetuates  the  childish 
impression  she  retained  of  this  mother  : 

"  In  thy  black  weeds,  and  coif  of  widow's  woe  ; 
Thy  dark  expressive  eyes  all  dim  and  clouded 
By  that  deep  wretchedness  the  lonely  know  ; 
Stifling  thy  grief,  to  hear  some  weary  task 
Conned  by  unwilling  lips,  with  listless  air, 
Hoarding  thy  means,  lest  future  need  might  ask 
More  than  the  widow's  pittance  then  could  spare. 
Hidden,  forgotten  by  the  great  and  gay, 
Enduring  sorrow,  not  by  fits  and  starts, 
But  the  long  self-denial,  day  by  day, 
Alone  amidst  thy  brood  of  careless  hearts  ! 
Striving  to  guide,  to  teach,  or  to  restrain 
The  young  rebellious  spirits  crowding  round, 
Who  saw  not,  knew  not,  felt  not  for  thy  pain, 
And  could  not  comfort— yet  had  power  to  wound  1 "  * 

There  is  a  delightful  picture  of  her  in  the  possession 
of  one  of  her  descendants,  in  coloured  crayons,  with 
bunches  of  soft  dark  hair,  slightly  covered  by  the 
most  graceful  of  lace  caps  tied  under  her  chin,  the 
head  charmingly  tilted,  so  that  the  dark  eyes  look 
down  from  the  wall  at  one  a  little  sideways ;  full,  firm 
lips  slightly  smiling,  a  face  not  less  sweet  because  so 
full  of  delicate  intelligence. 

But  indeed  she  had  need  of  this  and  all  the  other 

qualities  Heaven  had  given  her  to  carry  out  the  task 

with  which  she  found  herself  burdened  while  still  a 

very  young  woman,  at  her  husband's  death  ;  the  task 

1  The  Dream,  published  in  1840. 


1825]  SEPARATIONS  7 

of  bringing  up  and  educating  seven  little  children, 
four  boys  and  three  girls,  on  very  small  resources,  of 
finding  professions  for  her  sons  and  marrying  her 
daughters.  One  son  she  lost,  while  he  was  still  a 
midshipman  in  the  Royal  Navy ;  but  the  other  three 
grew  up,  and  places  were  found  for  all  of  them 
in  the  public  service,  through  the  Sheridan  or  quite 
as  often  through  her  own  family  influence.  Her 
three  daughters  she  brought  out  one  after  another 
into  the  best  London  society  and  married,  portionless 
as  they  were,  to  men  of  family  and  title,  the  youngest 
brilliantly. 

Caroline  was  the  only  one  of  these  daughters  who 
was  sent  away  from  home  for  part  of  her  education,  to 
a  little  school  between  Shalford  and  Wonersh,  in 
Surrey. 

"  One  thing  I  remember  that  mamma  said  to  Caro- 
line when  she  went  to  school,"  writes  Georgiana 
Sheridan,  some  years  later  to  her  elder  brother  in  India, 
"  '  Ah,  when  once  the  branches  of  a  family  are  divided, 
they  seldom  are  all  united  again.'  And  it  was  quite 
true;  we  never  did  see  a  Christmas  all  together  again. 
Caroline  went  to  school,  you  to  Harford ;  you  never 
all  of  you  had  holidays  at  the  same  time.  And  then 
poor  little  Tommy  went  to  sea,  and  so,  though  I 
sincerely  hope  to  see  you  again,  my  dear  Brinny,  yet 
I  never  can  forget  at  Christmas  or  at  any  other  time 
when  we  used  to  be  so  merry  together,  that  saying  of 
mamma's,  and  that  we  never  can  all  meet  together 
again,  and  I  hate  the  look  of  the  nursery  where  there 
used  to  be  so  many  merry  faces  and  cheerful  voices." 

It  was,  perhaps,  not  so  much  for  education,  as  for 
a  certain  need  of  discipline,  that  Caroline  was  sent 
away  from  the  little  circle  at  home.  For  it  is  evident 
that  the  flame  of  the  Sheridan  genius  had  begun  to 
burn  hotly  in  her  very  early,  exciting  her  to  wild 
rebellion,  passionate  reactions  of  feeling,  which  her 
grave  Scottish  mother  could  understand  as  little  as  she 
could  manage  them.     Yet  she  was  already  a  person  of 


8  BIRTH  AND   SCHOOLDAYS  [chap,  i 

more  than  schoolgirl  attainments;  she  wrote  songs 
with  admirable  facility,  and  sang  them  to  her  own 
music  in  a  young  untrained  voice,  already  a  soft  con- 
tralto ;  she  drew  very  well,  and  besides  her  own  and  her 
sister's  venture  of  "The  Dandies'  Rout,"  she  had  also 
tried  her  wings  in  more  extended  flights,  a  long  love 
poem  in  Spenserian  stanza,  "  Amoui'vada  and  Sebas- 
tian," begun  and  never  finished,  whose  scene  is  laid  in 
America,  an  early  instance  of  that  constant  interest 
and  liking  for  persons  and  things  beyond  the  Atlantic 
which  we  find  in  her  to  the  end  of  her  life. 

She  was  even  then  burning  to  become  some  day 
very  famous  by  her  writings  ;  as  a  little  girl  this  desire 
had  been  awakened  in  her  by  the  sight  of  her  uncle, 
Mr.  Charles  Sheridan,  at  work  in  his  study  over  a 
collection  of  Romaic  songs,  which  he  was  translating 
from  the  original,  and  which  were  afterwards  published 
by  Longmans.  "  I  invariably  left  his  study,"  says  she, 
in  a  letter  to  an  intimate  friend,  "  with  an  enthusiastic 
determination  to  write  a  long  poem  of  my  own." 

It  was  of  this,  her  first  long  poem,  that  she  was 
already  dreaming  when  she  went  to  school  at  Wonersh. 
It  was  the  Surrey  landscape  and  the  little  cottages 
round  Guildford  that  were  to  make  its  local  colour, 
as  far  as  it  can  be  said  to  have  any  of  that  very  modern 
quality ;  and  the  turnpike  gate  on  the  road  from  Guild- 
ford to  Shalford  was  the  scene  of  its  inspiration.  But 
there  were  other  things  beside  poetry  to  distract 
her  mind  from  school  books  during  her  stay  in 
Wonersh. 

The  most  important  estate  in  this  particular  part  of 
Surrey,  at  that  time,  was  Wonersh  Park,  the  property 
of  Fletcher,  third  Lord  Grantley,  a  peerage  no  older 
than  the  middle  of  the  preceding  century,  when  it 
had  been  bestowed  on  a  certain  Fletcher  Norton  for 
his  services  as  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons 
(1769-82).  But  the  family — of  Yorkshire  originally, 
and  still  holding  in  Yorkshire  its  principal  estates — 
boasted  an  antiquity  far  superior  to  the  title  extending 


1825]  WONERSH   PARK  9 

back  beyond  the  Wars  of  the  Roses ;  Wordsworth's 
poem,  "The  Last  of  the  Nortons,"  being  claimed  by 
them  as  a  tradition  of  their  own  race. 

Fletcher,  the  holder  of  the  title  when  Caroline 
Sheridan  first  came  to  Wonersh,  had  been  for^^me 
time  married  to  the  beautiful  daughter  of  the  paintgrT^ 
Sir  William  Beechey,  but  there  were  no  childrenpSR|3£"~ 
though  Lord  and  Lady  Grantley  were  both  still  youi§i 
there  was  little  likelihood  of  there  ever  being  any,  so 
estranged  were  the  relations  of  husband  and  wife. 
There  was  no  open  breach  between  them,  however ; 
when  she  was  not  amusing  herself  at  Brighton  she 
was  at  Wonersh,  surrounded  by  various  members  of 
her  husband's  family — his  Scottish  mother,  his  un- 
married sisters,  his  brother  George,  who  was  by  this 
time  very  generally  looked  upon  as  his  heir. 

It  was  a  pleasant  old  place,  not  very  large,  but 
stately  and  dignified,  the  main  part  an  old  Elizabethan 
manor  house,  the  two  wings  added  by  the  first  and 
third  Lords  Grantley  respectively.  The  great  brick 
wall  which  still  encloses  the  place  on  its  side  next  the 
village  was  also  the  work  of  Fletcher,  the  third  lord, 
and  in  those  days  just  completed,  in  all  the  bare  ugli- 
ness of  crude  masonry.  Its  great  double  Gothic  gates, 
kept  always  closed  during  the  life  of  its  builder,  gave 
directly  upon  the  small  gravelled  court  in  which  the 
old  house  stood.  The  real  facade  of  the  building, 
however,  looked  the  other  way,  towards  green  lawns 
studded  with  beautiful  trees,  a  great  cedar,  an  old 
sun-dial  in  the  midst  of  garden-beds  full  of  flowers, 
and  a  pretty  stream,  a  branch  of  the  Wey,  winding  off 
into  the  distance. 

Mrs.  Norton  thus  describes  her  first  meetings 
with  the  man  who  was  afterwards  to  become  her 
husband. 

"  He  was  the  brother  of  Lord  Grantley,  and  the 
governess  to  whose  care  I  was  confided  happening  to 
be  the  sister  to  Lord  Grantley's  agent,  the  female 
members  of  the  Norton  family,  from  courtesy  to  this 

2 


io  BIRTH   AND   SCHOOLDAYS  [chap,  i 

lady,  invited  her  and  such  of  her  pupils  as  she  chose 
to  accompany  her,  to  Lord  Grantley's  house.  A  sister 
of  Mr.  Norton's,  an  eccentric  person  who  affected 
masculine  habits  and  played  a  little  on  the  violin, 
amused  herself  with  my  early  verses  and  my  love  of 
music,  and  took  more  notice  of  me  than  of  my  com- 
panions. The  occasions  on  which  I  saw  this  lady 
were  not  frequent ;  and  still  more  rare  were  those  on 
which  I  had  also  seen  her  brother  ;  it  was  therefore 
with  a  feeling  of  mere  astonishment,  that  I  received 
from  my  governess  the  intelligence  that  she  thought  it 
right  to  refuse  me  the  indulgence  of  accompanying  her 
again  to  Lord  Grantley's  till  she  had  heard  from  my 
mother ;  as  Mr.  Norton  had  professed  his  intention  of 
asking  me  in  marriage." l 

The  gentleman  in  question  was  at  that  time  a  brief- 
less barrister  of  about  twenty-five,  well-made,  though 
not  tall,  good-looking,  with  a  fine  ruddy  complexion  ; 
but  rather  dull  and  slow  and  lazy,  and  late  for  every- 
thing, till  he  at  last  gained  the  cognomen,  not  worn  so 
threadbare  then  as  now,  of  the  "  late  George  Norton." 
He  lost  no  time,  however,  in  proposing  to  Mrs.  Sheridan 
for  her  daughter's  hand  ;  not  with  immediate  success 
indeed.  But  he  was  encouraged  to  hope,  to  wait,  till 
the  young  lady  was  a  little  older.  He  did  wait,  there- 
fore, nearly  three  years. 

1  "English  Laws  for  Women  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,"  pub- 
lished 1854. 


CHAPTER   II 

MARRIAGE 

Mrs.  Sheridan  took  a  house  in  Great  George  Street, 
Westminster,  as  soon  as  her  eldest  daughter  arrived 
at  marriageable  age,  and  for  some  time  to  come  it 
was  in  town  rather  than  at  Hampton  Court  that  she 
spent  the  greater  part  of  the  year.  Helen  Sheridan, 
the  first  of  those  three  beautiful  sisters  to  be  intro- 
duced into  society,  while  still  a  girl  of  seventeen,  in 
her  first  season,  captivated  the  heart  of  Price  Black- 
wood, a  young  officer  in  the  Royal  Navy.  It  was 
not  a  brilliant  match.  The  young  man's  father, 
indeed,  was  heir  to  the  Irish  peerage  of  Dufferin, 
but  he  himself  had  nothing  but  his  own  very 
slender  pay,  and  his  family  were  all  opposed  to  the 
connection. 

He  was  too  much  in  love,  however,  to  be  influ- 
enced by  their  opposition  when  once  he  had  over- 
come the  lady's  indifference.  He  married  Helen 
Sheridan  at  the  end  of  her  first  London  season 
and  carried  her  off  to  Italy  to  escape  the  unpleasant- 
ness which  might  arise  during  his  family's  first 
annoyance  at  his  disregard  of  their  wishes.  And 
now  it  was  Caroline's  turn  to  be  introduced  into 
the  world. 

As  handsome  as,  though  perhaps  less  graceful  than 
her  older  sister,  she  was  more  remarkable,  especially 
to   old   family  friends,   for    her    resemblance   to   her 


12  MARRIAGE  [chap,  ii 

famous  grandfather.  Moore  speaks  of  it  at  once  in 
his  Diary,  May  17,  1826: 

"  I  had  heard  that  the  Fancy  Quadrille  of  the 
Twelve  Months  that  was  danced  at  the  Spitalfields 
ball  last  week  was  to  be  repeated  to-night  at  Almack's  ; 
but  the  sister  of  one  of  the  Months  has  died  since 
then,  and  it  is  given  up.  The  Quadrille  of  Paysannes 
Provencales,  however,  was  danced ;  some  pretty 
girls — among  them  a  daughter  of  Lord  Talbot — the 
Miss  Duncombes,  Mrs.  Sheridan's  second  daughter, 
strikingly  like  old  Brinsley,  yet  very  pretty." 

He  called  at  Mrs.  Sheridan's  soon  after  this  first 
encounter,  though  the  sky  was  pouring  torrents,  and 
sang  for  and  with  Miss  Sheridan,  who  looked  quite 
as  pretty  by  day.  He  saw  her  later  at  Almack's, 
where  she  and  eleven  others,  prettiest  of  the  season's 
debutantes,  took  part  in  the  belated  dance  of  the 
Months,  each  bearing  on  her  head  a  gilt  basket  of 
the  flowers  and  fruits  of  her  season.  And  here,  too, 
he  declares  Miss  Sheridan,  who  was  August,  to  have 
been  the  handsomest  of  them  all. 

And  yet  her  beauty  was  not  of  the  sort  which  is 
at  its  best  in  a  very  young  girl.  She  was  shy— not 
the  shyness  of  the  timid  and  shrinking  nature,  but 
what  she  herself  later  describes  as — 

11  sauvagerie,  a  feeling  of  not  being  able  to  amalga- 
mate with  other  and  new  associates,  because  of 
something  in  one's  mind  different  from,  and  superior 
to,  the  common  nature,  which,  though  one  feels,  one 
is  afraid  of  showing ;  perhaps  from  being  instinctively 
conscious  that  it  is  an  assertion  of  superiority  (and 
consequently  an  insult  offered  to  the  new  acquaint- 
ance) ;  perhaps  from  that  dread  of  sympathy  which 
makes  one's  soul  so  often  creep  back  like  a  snail 
into  its  shell,  from  the  approach  of  unknown  substances 
which  may  wound.  The  evidence  of  this  shyness 
of  spirit  wears  off,  and  it  is  better  that  it  should,  as 
it  is  better  the  feet  should  be  hardened  for  walking." — 
Letter  to  Mrs.  Shelley,  Fitzgerald's  "  Lives  of  the 
Sheridans." 


1827]  GEORGE  NORTON  13 

Its  existence,  however,  must  have  given  uncertainty 
to  a  naturally  impulsive  manner,  to  her  first  inclination 
to  say  everything  and  do  everything  that  came  into 
her  head.  It  is  not  likely  that  her  first  London  season 
was  a  time  of  unmixed  pleasure  or  unmixed  success 
for  her,  especially  as  it  was  probably  cut  short  by  her 
first  real  sorrow,  the  news  of  her  brother's  death  on 
his  ship  in  the  harbour  of  Rio  de  Janeiro.  There  is  a 
rumour  too  that  there  was  some  one  whom  she  cared 
for  more  than  for  George  Norton,  some  one  who  died 
or  rode  away,  whose  passing  made  all  other  men  for 
the  moment  indifferent  to  her. 

George  Norton  did  not  belong  to  the  same  set  of 
London  society  as  she  did.  But  his  position  in  the 
world  was  rather  improved  by  his  being  elected 
Member  of  Parliament  for  Guildford  after  the  dissolu- 
tion of  1826.  And  whatever  else  happened  or  did  not 
happen,  he  had  remained  faithful,  or  apparently  faith- 
ful, to  his  long-declared  intention  of  making  her  his 
wife.  So  at  the  end  of  her  second  season,  with 
another  sister  coming  on  after  her,  having  learned  by 
this  time  that  the  world  was  not  entirely  made  for 
girls  like  herself — girls  who  had  neither  great  family 
nor  great  position  to  make  up  for  their  lack  of  dower — 
in  a  mood  of  momentary  disgust  at  what  the  world 
had  hitherto  given  her,  or  submission  to  her  obvious 
duty  to  her  family,  touched  and  misled  no  doubt  by 
the  permanence  of  the  passion  she  seemed  to  have 
excited  in  this  one  lover,  she  married  George  Norton, 
July  30,  1827,  he  being  at  that  time  twenty-six,  and 
she  nineteen. 

A  long  letter  from  Helen  Blackwood  written  as 
soon  as  she  heard  of  her  sister's  engagement  helped 
to  strengthen  the  younger  girl's  resolution  in  such 
a  step.  Mrs.  Blackwood  had  been  quite  as  little  in 
love  with  her  own  husband  when  she  married  him 
as  Caroline  was  with  George  Norton.  She  had  found 
herself,  however,  exceedingly  happy  with  him  and  with 
the  little  son  who  had  been   born  to  them  in  Italy. 


14  MARRIAGE  [chap.  11 

She  was  sure  Caroline  would  be  happy  too  in  following 
her  example. 

Perhaps  in  any  ordinary  case  she  would  have  been 
right,  but  certainly  no  two  people  were  less  fitted  for 
each  other  for  all  time  than  Caroline  Sheridan  and 
George  Norton.  Indeed,  it  seemed  as  if  all  the  differ- 
ences of  two  opposing  races  and  temperaments,  the 
inherent  misunderstanding  of  the  Celt  and  the  Saxon, 
lay  between  them,  and  held  them  apart  from  any  real 
union.  She,  gifted,  impetuous,  stormy-tempered,  with 
a  reckless,  specious  tongue,  with  an  instinct  for  taking 
the  lead  and  getting  possession  of  everything  around 
her :  magnanimous  and  generous,  incapable  of  hoard- 
ing injuries  and  paying  back  old  scores  when  once 
the  first  ungovernable  outburst  of  resentment  against 
them  had  subsided ;  and  he — that  dangerous  mixture 
which  is  often  found  in  dull  natures,  weak  but  exces- 
sively obstinate  and  suspicious  when  he  thought  he 
was  being  led,  narrow-spirited,  intolerant,  slow-witted, 
yet  not  silent ;  rather  with  a  certain  power  of  nagging 
comment  for  everything  about  him  that  he  was  least 
able  to  understand ;  not  without  surface  kindness  and 
humanity,  fond  of  children  and  animals,  but  coarse- 
natured  and  self-indulgent,  with  a  capacity  for  cruelty 
and  brutality  and  slow  revenge,  when  once  convinced 
he  had  been  aggrieved,  so  unlike  any  quality  possessed 
by  his  wife  that  it  seemed  to  confuse  and  stun  her 
like  a  blow  when  she  found  herself  opposed  to  it. 
Indeed,  it  actually  did  at  times  take  the  form  of  a  blow. 
She  did  not  love  him,  she  had  never  loved  him,  and 
in  the  past  she  had  made  him  feel  it ;  to  her  own 
cost  now,  for  he  was  the  sort  of  man  who  required  a 
woman  to  pay  in  kind  for  any  small  humiliation  she 
might  have  inflicted  on  him  before  she  became  legally 
bound  to  him.  One  hardly  likes  to  think  of  her 
despair  during  the  first  months  of  this  most  unhappy 
marriage.  They  were  very  poor  ;  he  had  little  beyond 
his  expectations  and  a  small  appointment  on  a  Com- 
mission   of    Bankruptcy,   obtained    for    him    by    his 


1827]  EARLY  UNHAPPINESS  15 

prospective  mother-in-law  during  his  period  of  waiting. 
His  wife  had  brought  him  little  more — about  .£50 
a  year,  her  share  of  the  pension  which  had  descended 
on  her  father's  death  to  his  widow  and  children.  So 
it  was  perhaps  more  by  necessity  than  choice  that 
they  came  back  to  London  after  their  honeymoon, 
and  spent  a  short  time  in  chambers  in  Garden 
Court,  the  Temple,  which  Norton  had  occupied  as  a 
bachelor,  with  only  the  old  woman  who  had  always 
taken  care  of  him  there  to  look  after  them.  It  was 
only  for  a  few  days,  before  they  could  go  on  to  Scot- 
land, where  he  was  expected  by  his  Scottish  relatives 
during  the  shooting,  but  it  was  long  enough  to  give 
the  young  wife  her  first  experience  of  brutal  violence 
from  the  man  with  whom  she  had  just  promised  to 
spend  the  rest  of  her  life ;  violence  perhaps  easier 
to  forgive  after  the  old  woman's  explanation  that 
her  master  was  not  sober  and  would  regret  it  by-and- 
by,  but  no  easier  to  bear  because  the  custom  and 
spirit  of  the  time  offered  no  hope  of  any  future 
escape  from  it. 

In  those  days  a  woman  took  her  husband  for  better 
and  for  worse,  and  no  amount  of  ill-treatment  or 
infidelity  on  his  part  could  free  her  from  her  vow 
to  honour  and  obey  him  till  death.  So  Caroline 
Norton,  when  she  found  herself  tied  for  life  to  a  man 
so  different  from  the  one  she  thought  she  had  married, 
might  sob  and  storm  and  wish  that  she  was  dead,  and 
then  find  what  comfort  she  could  in  looking  about 
and  seeing  that  many  other  women  were  as  badly 
off  as  she  was,  or  even  worse.  She  might  find 
what  comfort  she  could  in  letters  to  her  mother, 
full  of— we  may  guess  what — passionate  appeals  for 
sympathy  and  advice. 

On  one  occasion  when  she  was  writing  such  a  letter, 
with  Mr.  Norton  sitting  by,  sipping  spirits  and  water 
while  he  smoked  his  cigar,  the  latter  interrupted  her 
by  declaring  that  he  knew  from  the  expression  of  her 
face  she  was  complaining.     She  replied  with  temper 


1 6  MARRIAGE  [chap,  ii 

that  she  could  seldom  do  anything  else.  Upon  which 
he  snatched  away  and  tore  up  her  letter,  forbidding 
her  to  write  at  all,  but  she  had  not  the  nature  which 
makes  a  patient  Griselda.  She  took  another  sheet  and 
began  another  letter.  So  far  the  affair  had  proceeded 
like  many  another  silly  wrangle  between  two  young 
people  who  have  not  yet  learned,  as  the  phrase  goes,  to 
"get  on  with  one  another."  It  is  only  in  the  conclu- 
sion that  we  see  that  streak  of  cruelty  which  made 
this  marriage  such  a  peculiarly  unhappy  one.  After 
watching  and  smoking  a  few  moments  he  rose,  took 
one  of  the  allumettes  she  had  placed  for  his  cigar,  lit 
it,  poured  some  of  the  spirit  which  stood  by  him  over 
her  writing  materials,  and  in  a  moment  set  the  whole  in 
a  blaze.  It  was  by  such  means  as  this,  he  told  her, 
that  he  hoped  to  teach  her  not  to  brave  him. 

The  visit  to  Scotland  was  one  George  Norton  was 
accustomed  to  make  every  year  to  the  shooting  box 
of  Sir  Neil  Menzies,  the  husband  of  his  eldest  sister 
Grace.  This  lady  was  a  hard-tempered  Scots- 
woman, already  prejudiced  against  her  brother's 
marriage  for  its  lack  of  the  worldly  advantage  she 
wished  to  have  fallen  to  his  share.  The  relations 
between  the  two  sisters-in-law  were  uncordial  from 
the  first.  The  visit  would  have  been  unpleasant 
enough  for  the  young  wife  even  if  she  had  been  safe 
in  her  husband's  protection  instead  of  being,  as  she 
was,  nightly  in  such  dread  of  violence  that  it  drove 
her  more  than  once  to  watch  for  the  whole  night  in 
another  room  rather  than  submit  herself  to  a  chance 
of  its  recurrence. 

But  there  was  a  power  of  recovery  in  her  temper 
which  saved  her  from  the  worst  effects  such  treatment 
may  have  on  the  spirit;  an  endless  capacity  for  throwing 
off  the  burden  of  a  sorrow  after  it  had  been  borne  for  a 
certain  period,  which  gave  some  of  the  memories  even 
of  this  most  wretched  time  a  certain  sweetness.  She 
loved  Scotland,  revisited  for  the  first  time  after  long 
absence,  "  the   blue   lake  and   purple   hills,  .  .   .   the 


1827]  STOREY'S   GATE  17 

aromatic  scent  which  loads  the  atmosphere  in  spots 
thickly  planted  with  firs,  .  .  .  the  bloom  of  the  heather, 
spread  out  for  miles  and  miles,  the  rush  of  the  tumb- 
ling, turbid  stream,  whose  banks  were  blocks  of  stone, 
whose  shining  pools  seemed  fathomless."  She  liked 
her  brother-in-law,  Sir  Neil  Menzies,  and  he  liked  her. 
In  fact  his  general  inclination  for  her  society,  their 
long  walks  together  on  the  shores  of  Loch  Rannoch, 
his  pleasure  in  her  passionate  admiration  for  the  glow 
and  the  fading  of  the  sunset  on  the  Highland  hills,  and 
"  the  lake  that  lay  like  a  sapphire  dropped  from  the 
crown  of  some  monarch  mountain,"  his  constant 
friendliness,  in  short,  to  his  wife's  new  sister-in-law, 
was  perhaps  not  the  smallest  item  in  Lady  Menzies's 
list  of  grievances  against  her. 

Mrs.  Norton  liked  coming  back  to  London  and  settling 
down  in  a  house  of  her  own,  that  little  house  at  Storey's 
Gate  of  which  we  hear  so  often  and  in  such  familiar 
detail  that  we  can  almost  reconstruct  it  for  ourselves, 
although  it  has  been  swept  away  in  the  march  of 
modern  improvement.  We  can  imagine  its  tiny 
balcony  overhanging  Birdcage  Walk,  full  of  her 
favourite  flowers,  from  which  she  used  to  wave  a 
greeting  to  her  friends  as  they  streamed  by  in  their 
carriages  on  their  way  home  from  the  Derby,  or  to 
Lord  Melbourne  as  he  strolled  across  the  Park  from 
his  office  in  Downing  Street  to  the  glass  doorway 
which  gave  access  to  the  house  on  that  side.  The 
drawing-room,  so  small  that  it  was  nearly  filled  by  its 
big  sofa  :  and  the  window  opposite  the  sofa,  with  white 
muslin  curtains  drawn  across  it  and  falling  down  on 
one  side  ;  and  the  litter  of  coloured  chalks  and  drawing 
paper  and  writing  materials,  which  made  the  whole 
interior  so  unlike  the  conventional  lady's  reception 
room  of  that  day. 

Here  at  least  her  own  family  were  again  within 
her  reach,  her  mother  and  her  lovely  younger  sister 
Georgie,  and  two  little  brothers,  Frank  and  Charlie, 
just  across  the  way  in  Great  George  Street,  and  Helen 

3 


1 8  MARRIAGE  [chap,  ii 

Blackwood   and  her   husband  and  baby  home  again 
from  Italy,  in  temporary  quarters  near  Hampton  Court. 

And  very  soon,  no  doubt,  she  was  able  to  manage 
her  husband,  when  she  chose,  and  when  her  own 
stormy  temper  did  not  sweep  her  into  direct  defiance 
of  him.  For  in  those  days,  in  his  own  way 
perhaps,  but  as  well  as  his  faulty  nature  allowed,  he 
still  loved  her,  and  in  spite  of  their  differences  of 
temperament,  in  spite  of  the  vast  mental  and  moral 
superiority  which  she  must  already  have  felt  more 
and  more  in  all  her  relations  with  him,  still  she  was 
so  kind,  so  warm-hearted  and  affectionate,  that  any 
love  of  his  must  at  last  have  roused  a  certain  return 
in  her.  Not  for  some  time,  however.  For  some  time, 
indeed,  the  only  use  she  seemed  to  make  of  her  grow- 
ing power  over  him  was  to  go  her  own  way  regardless 
of  his  wishes  and  prejudices. 

One  great  and  fundamental  difference  of  opinion 
between  them  lay  in  politics.  All  the  Nortons  were 
Tories;  but  Caroline,  in  taking  the  Norton  name, 
remained  openly  a  Sheridan,  devoted  to  all  the 
Sheridan  traditions  of  belief,  a  valuable  aide-de-camp 
of  those  great  Whig  ladies,  the  Countess  of  Jersey,  the 
Countess  of  Sefton,  Lady  Cowper— afterwards  Lady 
Palmerston — who  were  doing  such  valuable  service 
to  their  party  by  making  their  social  prestige  a  card 
for  winning  over  susceptible  young  gentlemen  of  old 
Tory  families  to  the  Whig  cause. 

Catholic  Emancipation,  the  subject  of  the  hour  as 
long  as  George  Norton  remained  in  Parliament,  had 
been  one  of  the  things  for  which  the  older  Sheridan 
had  sacrificed  himself.  Catholic  Emancipation  was 
the  bugbear  of  all  good  Tories,  who  never  forgave 
their  party's  betrayal  on  that  point,  during  the  session 
of  1829,  by  their  own  leaders.  But  through  all  his 
course  in  Parliament,  George  Norton  must  have  had 
the  discomfort  of  hearing  his  wife's  enthusiastic 
championship  of  that  and  almost  every  subject  against 
which  he  had  already  cast  his  vote. 


i8z8]  THE   DUKE   OF   DEVONSHIRE  19 

He  was  also,  in  those  days  at  least,  exceedingly 
jealous  of  her.  Yet  he  had  to  submit  to  seeing  the 
number  and  consequence  of  her  admirers  increased 
rather  than  diminished  by  her  marriage  with  him. 

There  was  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  for  instance, 
that  splendid  luminary  of  the  Whig  party,  just  home 
from  a  special  mission  to  St.  Petersburg,  a  bachelor, 
young,  good-looking,  a  connoisseur  of  all  beautiful 
things,  and  especially  beautiful  women,  with  only  one 
drawback  to  his  social  attractions,  the  fact  that  he 
was  unfortunately  very  deaf.  The  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire no  sooner  met  Mrs.  Norton  than  he  began  to 
distinguish  her  by  his  attentions — attentions,  indeed, 
not  always  entirely  agreeable  to  other  members  of  his 
family. 

To  quote  from  the  diary  of  his  sister,  Lady  Granville, 
September  16,  1828  : 

"  I  hear  Mrs.  Norton  is  to  be  at  Chatsworth  [the 
Duke  of  Devonshire's  famous  place  in  Derbyshire].  I 
am  sorry  that  we  are  to  have  an  original  among  us, 
somebody  impossible  to  like  and  ungracious  to  dislike. 
I  am  happy  to  think  that  Craddock  and  Walewski 
are  to  be  with  us  ;  a  great  relief  to  the  sober  part 
of  the  community  to  have  such  game  for  her  to 
point  at." 

And  another  time  a  little  later  : 

"  The  idea  of  being  at  Chatsworth  with  dearest 
Hart  is  transport  mixed  with  awe  and  timidity. 
Norton  will  ask  me  who  I  am,  and  suppose  I  cannot 
love.  I  mean  to  form  an  alliance  with  Lord  Cowper, 
whose  liveliness  will  not  overpower  me !  " 

But  Lady  Granville,  quite  apart  from  her  sisterly 
affection  and  her  anxiety  for  her  "  dearest  Hart,"  was 
also  a  mother  with  marriageable  daughters,  and  as 
such  had  her  own  prejudices  against  all  three  Sheridan 
sisters,  and  the  extraordinary  power  they  seemed  to 
possess  for  making  young  marriageable  men  forget 


20  MARRIAGE  [chap,  ii 

themselves  and  their  own  more  obvious  advantage, 
and  rush  into  mad  marriages  with  girls  who  had  not  a 
shilling.  She  speaks  of  them  all  rather  flippantly, 
without  their  prefixes,  "  Norton,"  "  Blackwood," 
"  Sheridan,"  and  seldom  loses  the  opportunity  of  a 
sly  poke  or  tweak  when  she  has  occasion  to  mention 
them.  In  one  of  her  trips  across  the  Channel  during 
the  same  year  we  find  her  saying  :  "  Leopold  and  suite 
are  going  with  us.  He  is  going  to  Berlin ;  I  shall  be 
a  very  pleasant  companion  for  him,  able  to  talk  mild 
Liberal  politics,  or  of  Mrs.  Norton's  charms,  as  he 
likes  best."  For  Leopold,  not  yet  but  soon  to  be 
elected  King  of  the  Belgians,  was  another  of  those 
personages  who  were  turning  their  eyes  with  dis- 
tinguishing admiration  on  Mr.  Norton's  wife. 


p  20] 


MRS.    NORTON. 
From  a  lithograph  at  Chatsworth. 


CHAPTER    III 

"the  sorrows  of  rosalie" — "the  undying  one" — 
"  social  successes  " 

Though  George  Norton  had  shown  himself  so  far 
capable  of  generous  feeling  as  to  be  ready  to  marry 
the  woman  he  loved,  regardless  of  her  lack  of  fortune, 
he  was  by  no  means  indifferent  to  the  inconveniences 
resulting  from  this  very  cause.  Many  of  the  quarrels 
which  embittered  their  marriage  arose  from  his  mean 
reminders  that  she  had  brought  him  nothing  but  her 
person,  and  was  therefore  bound  to  give  more  and 
expect  less  than  a  wife  with  a  better  dower.  It  was 
the  sting  of  necessity,  therefore,  quite  as  much  as  her 
old  desire  for  fame,  which  drew  her  again  to  look  for 
a  market  among  the  publishers  for  her  poetry.  She 
was  so  far  successful  that  "  The  Sorrows  of  Rosalie,  a 
Tale,  with  other  Poems,"  appeared  anonymously  in 
the  spring  of  1829,  and  sold  so  well  that  with  the 
proceeds  she  was  able  to  pay  all  the  expenses  of  her 
first  confinement. 

The  little  book's  authorship  was  only  a  nominal 
secret.  The  dedication  to  Lord  Holland  is  a  frank 
enough  tribute  from  Sheridan's  granddaughter  : 

"  Taught  in  the  dawning  of  life's  joyous  years 
To  love,  admire,  and  reverence  thy  name, 
Though  of  youth's  feelings  few  remain  the  same, 
And  the  dim  vista  of  its  hopes  and  fears 
Memory  hath  blotted  out,  with  silent  tears  — 
21 


22  EARLY   POEMS  [chap,  hi 

Still  in  its  brightness,  even  as  then  it  came, 
Linked  with  the  half-remembered  tales  of  fame  ; 
That  word  before  my  darkened  soul  appears, 
Bringing  back  lips  that  speak  and  smile  no  more  ; 
Spurn  not  my  offering,  then,  from  that  bright  shrine 
Where  hope  would  place  it,  but  for  those  of  yore 
Permit  her  name,  who  trembles  o'er  each  line, 
In  its  oblivion  to  be  shadowed  o'er 
By  the  bright,  happy  gloriousness  of—Thine." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  comment  seriously  upon  the 
contents  of  this  little  volume.  For  whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  mental  quality  which  drove  this  girl  of 
nineteen  to  a  constant  effort  towards  literary  creation, 
it  would  have  been  little  short  of  a  miracle  to  have 
found  real  poetry  springing  so  soon  out  of  the  mass  of 
false  relations,  false  sentiment  and  extravagant,  often 
artificial  feeling,  which  was  the  conventional  inheri- 
tance of  every  well-brought-up  woman  in  the  early 
nineteenth  century,  with  little  to  counteract  it  in  the 
education,  at  once  meagre  and  sophisticated,  which 
had  been  especially  devised  for  girls  of  her  class  and 
expectations.  Add  to  this  the  peculiar  narrowness 
which  great  beauty  gives  to  the  range  of  a  woman's 
experience  when  she  does  come  into  relation  with  the 
better  educated  half  of  mankind,  the  lack  of  proportion 
that  is  so  apt  to  accompany  great  personal  unhappi- 
ness  in  the  very  young,  and  we  are  prepared  for 
exactly  what  we  find  in  these  first  verses  of  Mrs. 
Norton's.  The  Tale  itself  is  the  long  poem  of  her 
girlish  ambition,  very  long  indeed,  nearly  two  hundred 
Byronic  stanzas,  devoted  to  the  favourite  theme  for 
pathetic  writing  at  that  day,  and,  indeed,  for  many 
days  to  come — the  seduction  and  desertion  of  a  young 
and  beautiful  girl  by  a  high-born  lover,  her  subsequent 
misfortunes  and  death.  And  the  shorter  pieces  are 
melancholy,  egotistical  effusions,  stilted  in  their  ex- 
pression, and  varying  only  from  sad  to  bitter  in 
their  endless  iteration  of  the  disillusionment  which 
had  followed  their  author's  first  real  experience  of 
life. 


1829]  BIRTH   OF   HER   ELDEST   CHILD  23 

I  need  only  quote  one  of  these  earliest  poems  to 
give  a  fair  idea  of  them  all : 

"  My  heart  is  like  a  withered  nut, 
Rattling  within  its  hollow  shell ; 
You  cannot  ope  my  breast  and  put 
Anything  fresh  with  it  to  dwell. 
The  hopes  and  dreams  that  filled  it  when 
Life's  spring  of  glory  met  my  view, 
Are  gone,  and  ne'er  with  joy  or  pain 
That  shrunken  heart  shall  swell  anew. 

"  My  heart  is  like  a  withered  nut ; 
Once  it  was  soft  to  every  touch, 
But  now  'tis  stern  and  closely  shut : 
I  would  not  have  to  plead  with  such. 
Each  light-toned  voice  one  cleared  my  brow, 
Each  gentle  breeze  once  shook  the  tree 
Where  hung  the  sun-lit  fruit,  which  now 
Lies  cold  and  stiff  and  sad  like  me. 

"  My  heart  is  like  a  withered  nut — 
It  once  was  comely  to  the  view  ; 
But  since  misfortune's  blast  hath  cut, 
It  hath  a  dark  and  mournful  hue. 
The  freshness  of  its  verdant  youth 
Nought  to  that  fruit  can  now  restore  ; 


3 


And  my  poor  heart  I  feel  in  truth, 
Nor  sun  nor  smile  shall  light  it  more 

In  July  1829  her  first  child,  Spencer,  was  born, 
a  frail  and  delicate  baby,  whose  long  and  serious 
illnesses  early  initiated  his  mother  into  the  anguish 
as  well  as  the  joys  of  motherhood.  The  birth,  how- 
ever, of  this  boy,  and  the  thought  of  him  as  the  son  of 
his  father,  did  more  to  tame  her  and  attach  her  to  her 
husband  than  all  the  violence  of  George  Norton's  first 
passion  for  her.  Her  new  occupation,  also,  and  the 
addition  it  brought  to  their  narrow  income,  added  con- 
fidence, it  might  be  even  tenderness,  to  her  relations 
with  her  husband.  Almost  immediately  after  her  son's 
birth  she  was  again  at  work  on  a  new  poem,  "The 
Undying  One,"  which,  in  spite  of  all  her  anxieties  and 
distractions  as  the  young  mother  of  a  very  delicate 


24  EARLY   POEMS  [chap,  hi 

baby,  was  ready  for  publication  at  the  beginning  of  the 
following  year,  1830.  A  little  glimpse  of  how  she 
worked  at  that  time  is  shown  by  another  letter  of 
Georgiana  Sheridan  to  her  brother  in  India. 

"  SUNDAY,  January  24,  1830, 
finished  February  8. 

"  Dearest  Brin, 

"  I  am  long  in  giving  the  promised  account  of 
our  doings  at  Claremont  [Prince  Leopold's  residence 
near  Hampton  Court],  but  have  not  really  had  time, 
owing  to  the  illness  of  poor  Caroline's  beautiful  baby 
— an  account  of  which  you  shall  have  anon.  He  is 
well  now.  .  .  .  Caroline  has  finished  her  new  poem, 
called  'The  Undying  One.'  She  is  going  to  write 
another  poem  called  'The  Lady  of  Ringstatten,'  and 
she  has  written  two  volumes  of  a  novel  called  '  Love 
in  the  World  and  Love  out  of  the  World,'  which  I 
want  her  to  finish,  as  prose  sells  better  and  easier 
than  poetry.  She  means  to  ask  £500,  and  thinks  six 
weeks'  more  hard  writing  will  finish  it,  and  then  she 
intends  to  write  a  tragedy." 

Such  an  output  in  a  few  months  speaks  well  for  the 
young  writer's  industry  if  for  nothing  else.  But,  to 
quote  her  own  words,  she  brought  to  her  many  tasks 
"  all  the  energy  which  youth,  high  spirits,  ambition, 
good  health,  and  the  triumph  of  usefulness  could 
inspire,  joined  to  a  wish  for  literary  fame  so  eager  that 
I  sometimes  look  back  and  wonder  if  1  was  punished 
for  it  by  unenviable  and  additional  notoriety." 

As  to  her  desire  for  literary  fame,  it  is  not  likely 
that  work  produced  in  this  way,  and  in  such  quantities, 
could  have  much  permanent  value. 

"The  Undying  One,"  which  appeared  in  the  be- 
ginning of  1830  under  the  auspices  of  a  new  publisher, 
Colburn  &  Bentley,  New  Burlington  Street,  is  a  long, 
diffuse  poem  in  four  cantos,  on  the  threadbare  theme  of 
the  wandering  Jew.  Indeed  Mrs.  Norton  herself  felt  it 
necessary  later  to  apologise  for  the  choice  of  a  subject 
so  hackneyed  by  the  confession  that  when  she  chose  it 


1830]  "THE  UNDYING  ONE"  25 

she  was  still  too  unfamiliar  with  literature  to  know 
how  hackneyed  the  subject  really  was.  The  book  was 
dedicated  to  the  Duchess  of  Clarence,  one  of  the  many 
royalties  with  whom  her  early  residence  at  Hampton 
Court  had  brought  her  into  personal  relations.  In- 
deed, not  only  the  Duchess  and  the  Duke,  afterwards 
William  IV.,  but  all  the  young  FitzClarences,  male  and 
female,  were  friends  of  that  early  period,  according  as 
their  ages  corresponded  with  one  or  another  of  the 
young  Sheridans,  and  remained  in  friendly  relations 
with  them  as  long  as  they  all  lived. 

This  time  she  permitted  her  name  to  appear  on  the 
first  page — "  The  Undying  One  and  other  Poems,  by 
the  Honble.  Mr.  Norton."  It  was  reviewed  in  Fraser's 
Magazine,  a  periodical  notorious  for  the  violent,  per- 
sonal tone  of  its  reviews.  But  while  every  known 
weakness  of  her  grandfather  and  father  was  exhi- 
bited to  the  public  in  a  derisive  panegyric  of  the 
Sheridan  genius,  the  young  writer  and  her  poem  came 
off  rather  well,  better  than  in  the  comment  of  the 
Tory  paper  John  Bull  on  her  assumption  of  a  title  to 
which  her  husband  had  then  no  right.  He  could  be 
the  Hon.  George  Norton  only  if  he  were  the  son,  not, 
as  he  was,  the  brother  of  a  peer ;  the  existing  Lord 
Grantley  having  inherited  from  his  uncle. 

The  "  other  poems  "  of  this  new  Collection  include 
many  of  the  songs  by  which  the  author  is  best  known 
to  us  now — no  doubt  well  known  then  before  they 
appeared  in  print,  for  they  were  her  songs,  which  she 
sang  to  her  own  melodies  "  in  her  soft  contralto  voice  " 
— songs  which  have  since  been  sung  by  all  the  beautiful 
dead  voices  of  the  last  two  generations,  till  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  judge  them  apart  from  their  peculiar 
associations.  And  whatever  the  faults  we  may  find  in 
them  when  we  come  to  regard  them  with  a  coldly 
critical  spirit,  they  were  for  a  long  time  excessively 
popular,  and  might  still  give  pleasure  in  their  graceful 
appeal  to  a  frankly  romantic  and  sentimental  side  of 
emotion,  which,  though  just  now  gone  rather  out  of 

4 


26  EARLY   POEMS  [chap,  hi 

fashion,  can  never  go  entirely  out  of  existence,  and 
may  one  day  come  to  its  own  again. 

Their  very  titles  wake  familiar  memories  in  those 
who  are  still  possessors  of  old-fashioned  music 
albums  : 

"  Thy  name  was  once  the  magic  spell 
By  which  my  heart  was  bound." 

"  I  dreamt, — 'twas  but  a  dream, — thou  wert  my  bride,  love  !  " 

"  Love  not,  love  not.     The  thing  you  love  may  die." 

"  I  was  not  false  to  thee." 

And  last,  best  known  even  at  the  present  day :  "  My 
Arab  Steed." 

It  was  this  same  year,  1830,  that  Mrs.  Norton  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Fanny  Kemble,  then  in  the  first 
glow  of  her  triumph  as  an  actress  at  the  Covent  Garden 
Theatre,  a  gifted  creature  herself,  with  a  power  of 
description  which  makes  peculiarly  alive  everybody 
she  mentions  in  that  delightful  book  of  hers,  "  Recol- 
lections of  a  Girlhood." 

We  find  here  an  amusing  account  of  a  meeting 
between  Mrs.  Norton  and  Theodore  Hook,  the  editor 
of  The  John  Bull  Review,  whose  mischievous  comments 
on  her  use  of  her  own  name  had  already  awakened 
her  indignation  against  him. 

Fanny  Kemble  did  not  like  Theodore  Hook  either. 

11 1  always  had  a  dread  of  his  loud  voice  and  blazing 
red  face  and  staring  black  eyes,  especially  as  on  more 
than  one  occasion  his  after-dinner  wit  seemed  to  me 
fitter  for  the  table  he  had  left  than  the  more  refined 
atmosphere  of  the  drawing-room." 

She  goes  on  to  describe  his  skill  in  extempore 
composition,  concluding  at  last : 

"  But  I  remember  hearing  his  singular  gift  in  a 
manner  that  seemed  to  me  as  unjustifiable  as  it  was 


1830]  THEODORE   HOOK  27 

disagreeable.  I  met  him  once  at  dinner  at  Sir  John 
McDonald's,  then  Adjutant-General,  a  very  kind  and 
excellent  friend  of  mine.  Mrs.  Norton  and  Lord 
Clements,  who  were  among  the  guests,  both  came 
late  and  after  we  had  gone  into  the  dining-room, 
where  they  were  received  with  a  discreet  quantity  of 
mild  chaff,  Mrs.  Norton  being  much  too  formidable  an 
adversary  to  be  challenged  lightly.  After  dinner, 
however,  when  the  men  came  up  into  the  drawing- 
room,  Theodore  Hook  was  requested  to  extemporise, 
and  having  sung  one  song,  was  about  to  leave  the 
piano  in  the  midst  of  the  general  entreaty  that  he 
would  not  do  so,  when  Mrs.  Norton,  seating  herself 
close  to  the  instrument,  so  that  he  could  not  leave  it, 
said  in  her  most  peculiar,  deep,  soft  contralto  voice, 
which  was,  like  her  beautiful  dark  face,  set  to  music, 
4 1  am  going  to  sit  down  here,  and  you  shall  not 
come  away,  for  I  will  keep  you  in  like  an  iron  crow 
(bar).' 

"There  was  nothing  about  her  manner  or  look  that 
could  suggest  anything  but  a  flattering  desire  to  enjoy 
Hook's  remarkable  talent  in  some  further  specimen  of 
his  power  of  extemporising,  and  therefore  I  suppose 
there  must  have  been  some  previous  ill-will  or  heart- 
burning on  his  part  towards  her.  She  was  reckless 
enough  in  her  wonderful  wit  and  power  of  saying  the 
most  intolerable,  stinging  things  to  have  left  a  smart 
on  some  occasion  in  Hook's  memory,  for  which  he 
certainly  did  his  best  to  repay  her  then.  Every  verse 
of  the  song  he  now  sang  ended  with  his  turning  with 
a  bow  to  her,  and  the  words,  '  My  charming  riron 
crow ' ;  but  it  was  from  beginning  to  end  a  covert 
satire  of  her  and  her  social  triumphs.  Even  the  late 
arrival  to  dinner  and  its  supposed  causes  were  duly 
brought  in,  still  with  the  same  mock-respectful  inclina- 
tion to  his  'charming  iron  crow.'  Everybody  was 
glad  when  the  song  was  over,  and  applauded  it  quite 
as  much  from  a  sense  of  relief  as  from  admiration 
of  its  extraordinary  cleverness ;  and  Mrs.  Norton 
smilingly  thanked  Hook,  and  this  time  made  way  for 
him  to  leave  the  piano. 

"We  lived  near  each  other  at  this  time,  we  in  James 
Street,  Buckingham  Gate,  and  the  Nortons  at  Storey's 
Gate,  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  Birdcage  Walk.     We 


28  SOCIAL  SUCCESSES  [chap,  in 

both  of  us  frequented  the  same  place  of  worship,  a 
tiny  chapel  wedged  in  among  the  buildings  at  the 
back  of  Downing  Street,  the  entrance  to  which  was 
from  the  Park ;  it  has  been  improved  away  by  the  new 
Government  offices.  Our  dinner  at  the  McDonalds' 
was  on  a  Saturday,  and  the  next  day,  as  we  were 
walking  part  of  the  way  home  together,  Mrs.  Norton 
broke  out  about  Theodore  Hook  and  his  odious 
ill-nature  and  abominable  coarseness,  saying  that  it 
was  a  disgrace  and  a  shame  that  for  the  sake  of  his 
paper,  the  John  Bull,  and  its  influence,  the  Tories 
should  receive  such  a  man  in  society.  I,  who,  but  for 
her  outburst  upon  the  subject,  should  have  carefully 
avoided  mentioning  Hook's  name,  presuming  that  after 
his  previous  evening's  performance  it  could  not  be 
very  agreeable  to  Mrs.  Norton,  now,  not  knowing 
very  well  what  to  say,  but  thinking  the  Sheridan 
blood  (especially  in  her  veins)  might  have  some 
sympathy  with,  and  find  some  excuse,  for  him,  sug- 
gested the  temptation  that  the  possession  of  such 
wit  must  always  be,  more  or  less,  to  the  abuse 
of  it.  f 

"  '  Witty  ! '  exclaimed  the  indignant  beauty,  with 
her  lip  and  nostril  quivering — '  witty !  One  may 
well  be  witty  when  one  fears  neither  God  nor  the 
devil.' " 

A  letter  of  Fanny  Kemble's  written  to  Mrs.  Jameson, 
very  nearly  at  the  time  when  this  event  took  place, 
gives  perhaps  a  better  idea  of  her  impressions  of 
Mrs.  Norton  than  these  later  reminiscences : 

"  Glasgow,  July  3,  1830. 

"  What  you  say  of  Mrs.  Norton  only  echoes  my  own 
thoughts  of  her.  She  is  a  splendid  creature,  nobly 
endowed  every  way — too  nobly  to  become  through 
mere  frivolity  and  foolish  vanity,  the  mark  of  the 
malice  and  envy  of  such  things  as  she  is  surrounded 
by,  and  who  will  all  eagerly  embrace  the  opportunity 
of  slandering  one  so  immeasurably  their  superior  in 
every  respect.  I  do  not  know  much  of  her,  but  I  feel 
deeply  interested  in  her,  not  precisely  with  the  interest 
inspired  by  loving  or  even  liking,  but  with  that  feeling 


1830]  WHIG  VICTORIES  29 

of  admiring  solicitude  with  which  one  must  regard  a 
person  so  gifted,  so  tempted,  and  in  such  a  position  as 
hers.  I  am  glad  that  lovely  sister  of  hers  is  married, 
though  matrimony  in  that  world  is  not  always  the 
securest  haven  for  a  woman's  virtue  or  happiness  ;  it 
is  sometimes  in  that  society  the  reverse  of  an  honour- 
able estate." 

The  sister  referred  to  is,  of  course,  Georgiana, 
who  was  married  in  June  1830  to  the  eldest  son  of 
the  Duke  of  Somerset,  Lord  Seymour,  instantly 
acknowledged  by  his  new  connection  as  the  dearest, 
kindest  brother-in-law  in  the  world.  The  house  where 
the  young  couple  proceeded  to  establish  themselves, 
just  across  the  Park  from  the  Nortons  at  Storey's 
Gate,  No.  18,  Spring  Gardens,  was  always  a  place 
of  especial  resort  for  the  Sheridan  brothers  and 
sisters. 

On  June  26,  1830,  the  King,  George  IV.,  died,  and  in 
the  general  election  that  followed  Lord  Seymour  came 
in  as  a  Whig  from  Devonshire,  while  George  Norton 
lost  his  seat  as  Tory  for  Guildford. 

This  abrupt  conclusion  of  his  Parliamentary  career 
was  a  not  unimportant  link  in  the  chain  of  events 
which  was  to  bring  such  disaster  to  that  unfortunately 
married  couple. 

We  read  in  a  letter  of  Mrs.  Norton's  written  to  her 
sister  Lady  Seymour  on  this  occasion  : 

"August  5,  1830. 

"  Norton's  election  is  lost,  and  with  that  mixture  of 
sanguine  hope,  credulity,  and  vanity  which  distin- 
guishes him,  he  assures  me  that,  although  thrown  out, 
he  was  the  popular  candidate ;  that  the  opponents  are 
hated,  and  that  all  those  who  voted  against  him  did  it 
with  tears.  I  swear  to  you  this  is  not  exaggerated, 
but  what  he  says  and  believes.  He  is  just  gone  down  to 
Wonersh  to  do  the  honours  of  a  fete  champetre  given  in 
his  name  and  Grantley's  at  that  place.  I  am  sorry,  not 
because  I  ever  hoped  to  see  him  an  orator,  but  because, 
after  all,  it  is  something  lost — one  of  the  opportunities 


30  SOCIAL   SUCCESSES  [chap,  hi 

of  life  slipped  through  one's  fingers.  The  most  im- 
mediate disagreeable  consequence  of  his  not  coming 
in  for  Guildford  is  that  our  stay  in  Scotland  is  to  be 
extended  to  the  end  of  October  or  the  beginning  of 
November,  and  I  fear  when  he  is  once  there,  we  shall 
stay  the  Christmas,  as  his  Parliamentary  duties  have 
alone  prevented  it  hitherto.  The  remote  evil  is  more 
to  be  dreaded  if  it  turns  out  to  be  feasible.  Grantley 
and  he  have  agreed  that  to  conciliate  the  goodwill 
and  affection  of  the  Guildford  voters  it  is  necessary 
to  be  more  amongst  them  than  Norton  has  hitherto 
been.  For  this  purpose  they  propose,  not  that  Norton 
should  come  to  Wonersh  at  stated  intervals — which  he 
has  made  impossible  with  any  comfort — but  that  he 
should  live  at  a  little  cottage  there,  called  Norbrook, 
belonging  to  Lord  Grantley.  Norton  assures  me 
that  I  am  the  sort  of  person  to  be  interested  about 
anything,  that  I  shall  easily  change  my  delight  in 
society  for  pride  and  pleasure  in  my  dairy,  while  his 
health  will  be  materially  benefited  by  the  change, 
and  that  his  profession  shall  still  be  politics. 

11 1  am  provoked  beyond  my  usual  style  of  heroics, 
and  you  may  think  me  harsh  to  him,  but  this  last  plan 
beats  all.  I  have  yet,  however,  these  hopes  :  is/,  that 
the  natural  selfishness  of  man  may  prevent  the  Com- 
mission of 'Bankrupts'  from  agreeing  to  Norton's  plan 
for  his  own  exclusive  benefit ;  2nd,  that  the  unnatural 
selfishness  of  his  own  brother  will  prevent  his  getting 
Norbrook  at  all,  unless  upon  terms  which  with  our 
income  would  be  impossible.  And  this  I  am  resolved, 
that  if  Norbrook  is  not  to  come  into  our  hands  built, 
furnished,  and  free  of  prior  expenses  I  will  resist,  and 
that  to  the  uttermost  of  my  power,  the  headstrong 
folly  which,  for  the  sake  of  a  moderate  and  most  un- 
certain advantage,  would,  by  plunging  Norton  into 
difficulties  from  which  he  would  never  be  able  to 
extricate  himself,  ruin  the  future  prospects,  slender  as 
they  are,  of  my  little  one. 

"  I  shall  be  very  sorry  to  live  in  the  country,  and 
that  too  just  as  you  are  coming  to  live  in  town,  and 
we  might  have  been  so  much  together.  I  earnestly 
hope,  however,  that  the  plan  will  not  be  feasible ; 
there  are  many  difficulties,  and  to  him,  difficulties  are 
too  often  impossibilities.     Of  the  Wonersh  business 


1830]  MR.   NORTON'S   NEW   PLANS  31 

I  can  only  tell  you  that  Lady  Grantley  says  I  shall 
never  come  there  again,  and  will  not  speak  to  Norton  ; 
and  that  the  day  I  left  town  I  saw  Grantley  and  young 
Austen  chatting  arm-in-arm  in  Pall  Mall. 

"  I  think  Grantley  hopes  that  I  am  fool  enough  to 
refuse  to  live  with  Norton  in  the  country,  and  that  a 
separation  would  leave  Norton  once  more  a  tool  in 
his  hands.  Now,  dear,  he  overrates  my  London  feel- 
ings amazingly  and  underrates  my  wisdom.  God 
bless  you,  dear.  There  is  a  good  deal  in  this  letter, 
considering  I  never  cross,  but  am  only  crossed.  Love 
and  congratulations  to  your  good  man. 

"  Ever  your  most  affectionate, 
"Car." 


The  fate  she  so  dreaded,  solitude  a  deux  in  a  quiet 
little  Surrey  village,  did  not  ever  befall  her.  We 
find  her  writing  in  her  usual  spirits  to  her  sister  from 
Brighton  later  that  same  year. 

"  Brighton,  December  26. 

" '  Seule  joie  de  mon  ame,  charmante  et  bien-aim£e 
Marietta.' 

"  Such  was  the  formula  with*  which  Jean  Sobieski's 
letters  to  his  wife  commenced,  and  such,  from  my  near 
vicinity  to  the  Pavilion,  is  the  kingly  salutation  which 
rises  to  my  lips,  or  rather  my  pen.  I  return,  Madame, 
on  Monday,  January  3,  1 831,  to  light  up  your  homes 
with  joy.  I  have  wandered  about  like  an  evil  spirit, 
seeking  rest,  but  finding  none.  1  have  bathed,  and 
am  a  little  cleaner  but  none  the  merrier.  I  have 
walked  up  and  down  the  new  walk  by  the  seaside, 
but  the  only  visible  effect  is  elephantiasis  in  my  left 
leg  and  the  gout  in  my  right.  I  have  stood  looking 
at  the  sunset  on  the  sea  with  Clarence  Pigeon  at  my 
side,  but  the  results  are  merely  a  red  nose  and  hatred 
of  my  companion  (together  with  some  shame  at  being 
seen  with  him  because  he  wears  a  tail  coat  of  a 
morning).  I  have  watched  all  the  geese  who  walk 
bare-legged  on  the  Marine  Parade  '  not  for  fear  of 
bein'  seen,  but   for  dirting  their  clothes,'  and  return 


32  SOCIAL  SUCCESSES  [chap,  hi 

to  the  bivouac  at  the  Weymouths',  weary,  stale,  flat, 
and  unprofitable.  I  call  it  '  bivouac '  because  the 
Captain  always  begins,  'When  I  biv-whacked  in 
Spain.'  Cordial,  kind,  excellent,  amiable,  devoted 
friends ! 

"  December  27. 

"  I  did  not  finish  yesterday,  because  I  was  interrupted. 
Yesterday  I  bade  Amelia  farewell  [Lady  Amelia  Fitz- 
clarence,  about  to  be  married  to  Lord  Falkland],  and 
saw  her  wedding-dress,  which  was  lace  over  satin, 
with  a  veil  to  match,  very  pretty.  She  was  in  very 
high  spirits,  and  looked  handsomer  than  ever.  The 
'  Falkland  Isles  '  was  full  of  poetical  forebodings  and 
assurance  that  he  would  govern.  '  It's  easy  talking 
when  talking's  all,'  said  I.  '  Do  you  think  I  couldn't  ?  ' 
quoth  he  in  fury.  '  By  Jove,  I'd  make  any  woman  do 
as  I  pleased,  aye,  even  you,  odd  as  you  are,  and 
comfortable  as  you  are,  and  out  of  my  reach  as  you 
think  yourself.'  '  I  am  not  out  of  your  reach,  Lord 
Falkland,'  said  I,  measuring  the  distance  between  us 
with  my  small  brown  eye.  '  Well,  you  need  not 
laugh  at  me  when  I'm  going  away  to-morrow.'  So  I 
desisted.  They  were  hooked-and-eyed  this  morning, 
and  are  gone  to  Cumberland  Lodge.  I  gave  the 
creatures  my  blessing ! 

"  I'm  always  jealous  of  people  who  are  going  to  be 
married.     Black  envy  and  venomous  spite  !  " 

The  beginning  of  the  new  year  found  her  still  at 
Storey's  Gate,  though  the  little  cottage  in  Surrey  must 
have  loomed  a  dangerous  possibility  across  her  future 
for  some  months  to  come.  For  the  Whig  Parliament, 
elected  in  the  summer  of  1830,  had  lost  no  time  in 
turning  out  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton, and  bringing  in  a  new  Government  headed  by 
Lord  Grey,  and  pledged  to  economy  and  Parlia- 
mentary reform.  And  one  of  the  first  departments 
to  suffer  curtailment  under  the  vigorous  reorganisa- 
tion of  Lord  Brougham  was  that  in  which  George 
Norton  served  as  Commissioner  of  Bankruptcy. 

It  was  absolutely  necessary  then  to  find  some  new 
place   for  him   before  Lord  Brougham   should   have 


1830]  THE  NEW  MINISTRY  33 

reformed  away  his  old  one,  or  to  see  him  dependent 
upon  his  brother  for  the  future.  The  thought  of  the 
alternative,  no  doubt,  nerved  his  wife  for  the  task  to 
which  she  presently  set  herself. 

Fortunately  for  her,  the  new  Government  was  com- 
posed largely  of  friends  of  her  famous  grandfather, 
while  the  new  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  Sir  James 
Graham,  was  her  uncle  by  his  marriage  with  her 
mother's  youngest  sister.  Her  own  family  had  already 
felt  the  advantage  of  this  last  connection,  which 
brought  young  Frank  Sheridan  an  appointment  among 
the  clerks  of  the  Admiralty  and  Price  Blackwood  a 
frigate.  Mr.  Norton's  profession  excluded  him  from 
this  source  of  influence ;  but  it  would  be  a  pity  if  no 
other  Cabinet  Minister  could  be  found  to  give  him 
preferment  suited  to  his  especial  training  and  talents. 

To  quote  Mrs.  Norton's  own  words  : 

"  I  besieged  with  variously  worded  letters  of 
importunity  the  friends  whom  I  knew  as  the  great 
names  linked  with  the  career  of  my  grandfather." 

One  of  these  was,  of  course,  the  Lord  President, 
Lord  Lansdowne ;  another  was  Lord  Melbourne,  the 
Home  Secretary.  This  last-named  nobleman  was  at 
that  time  approaching  his  fiftieth  year.  It  might  be 
supposed,  therefore,  that  he  had  left  the  better  part 
of  his  life  behind  him.  And  yet,  in  fact,  he  had 
hardly  begun  his  career.  He  had  held  office  for  the 
first  time  only  three  years  before,  the  year  of  Caroline's 
marriage,  1827,  when  he  was  appointed  Irish  Secretary 
under  George  Canning.  He  was  called  home  from 
Ireland  in  January  1828  by  the  death  of  his  wife,  the 
eccentric  and  unhappy  Lady  Caroline  Lamb.  In  the 
same  year,  on  the  death  of  his  father,  he  became  Lord 
Melbourne,  and  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
Some  time  before  this  event  and  his  appoint- 
ment to  the  Home  Office,  his  relations  with  Lady 
Brandon  had  resulted  in  a  civil  suit  for  damages, 
in  which  the  lady's  guilt  was  as  evident  as  her 
husband's  readiness  to  make  money  out  of  it.     The 

5 


34  SOCIAL  SUCCESSES  [chap,  hi 

whole  affair  was  given  as  little  publicity  as  possible, 
but  it  was  well  known  and  discussed  in  London 
society  of  that  time,  to  whom  it  could  hardly  have 
come  as  a  surprise,  for  he  had  never  been  a  man  of 
impeccable  reputation  in  those  respects,  though  there 
was  a  certain  grace  even  in  his  weaknesses  in  this 
direction,  arising  as  they  did  from  a  sort  of  inherent 
need  for  women's  society  and  companionship,  and 
capable  as  they  were,  sometimes,  of  a  very  fine  quality 
of  friendship. 

Such  was  the  man  whom  Caroline  Norton's  letter 
found  in  his  new  office  in  Downing  Street.  One 
regrets  that  this  one  letter,  the  first  of  the  many 
he  was  to  receive  in  that  same  clear,  characteristic 
handwriting,  has  long  ceased  to  exist,  and  that  we 
can  never  know  exactly  what  graceful  and  persuasive 
wording  brought  him  to  his  decision  not  to  write 
his  reply  but  to  go  and  see  the  woman  whose  name 
stood  at  the  bottom  of  the  page.  He  stopped 
at  Storey's  -Gate  one  afternoon  on  his  way  to  the 
Lords ;  and  though  it  seemed  at  first  that  there 
was  little  in  his  power  to  do  for  her  husband,  he 
often  afterwards  dropped  in  to  see  her  on  his  way  to 
and  from  the  House,  or  after  a  Cabinet  meeting.  On 
these  occasions  he  used  to  sit  on  the  sofa  in  the  little 
drawing-room,  sometimes  highly  talkative  and  amusing, 
at  others  in  the  lazy,  listening,  silent  humour  which 
Greville  speaks  of  as  equally  characteristic,  "disposed 
to  hear  everything  and  say  very  little." 

They  soon  were  intimate  friends.  The  perfect 
innocence  of  their  relation  had  at  last  to  be  proved, 
but  it  was  proved,  in  a  court  of  common  justice,  so 
convincingly  that  even  those  most  ready  at  first  to 
deny  it  were  forced  at  last  to  acknowledge  how 
profoundly  their  worldly  wisdom,  in  this  case  at  least, 
had  been  at  fault.  That  it  was  a  friendship  without 
sentiment,  however,  it  is  impossible  and  not  necessary 
to  believe.  He  had  all  the  advantages  that  would 
attract   a  woman  of  her  temperament :  good   looks, 


1830]  LORD   MELBOURNE  35 

maturity  of  experience,  knowledge  of  the  world,  com- 
bined with  a  rude,  handsome  manliness,  and  spirits 
as  high  as,  and  even  more  boisterous  than  her  own, 
tempered,  like  hers,  by  a  vein  of  thoughtfulness  and 
melancholy — this  last,  however,  as  much  concealed  as 
it  was  in  the  nature  of  a  very  open,  unaffected 
man  to  conceal  anything.  In  his  society,  too,  for 
the  first  time  she  felt  an  answer  to  her  own  mind 
such  as  no  one  in  the  world  had  yet  vouchsafed. 
She  found  a  tutor  and  guide  worthy  of  that  eager, 
hungry  intelligence  which  had  never  yet  received  its 
proper  measure  of  nourishment.  He  was  a  man 
"saturated  with  information,  which  was  constantly 
bubbling  over  in  an  original  and  sometimes  fantastic 
form,"  yet  he  heartily  despised  all  the  conventions 
and  hypocrisies  of  those  learned  men  who  like  to 
hold  the  thought  of  others  in  leading  strings;  not 
indeed  a  profound  or  radical  thinker  himself,  he  never 
really  went  very  far  afield  from  the  moderate  and 
compromised  conclusions  of  the  average  British  mind  ; 
but  his  method  of  thought  was  perfectly  untrammelled 
and  audacious,  most  acceptable  to  a  spirit  which  had 
never  before  been  able  to  stretch  to  its  full  height. 

And  then  he  had  no  small  meannesses.  He  cared 
too  little  for  those  rewards  and  distinctions  on  which 
the  men  about  him  set  such  a  high  price.  He  held  his 
own  high  place  lightly.  He  did  not  conceal  his  jovial 
contempt  of  others  who  held  it  dear. 

And  as  for  her  effect  upon  him  !  He  was  not  a  man 
to  remain  quite  cold  in  his  relation  to  any  woman ; 
belonging  rather  to  those  who  even  in  old  age, 
even  in  their  treatment  of  little  children,  preserve 
something  of  the  eternal  relation,  though  it  may  show 
itself  at  last  only  in  a  gentleness  peculiarly  flattering — 
a  sentiment  of  vain  regret  for  the  woman  whom  perhaps 
he  will  never  live  to  see.  But  Caroline  Norton  was 
not  a  child,  rather  an  extraordinarily  fascinating 
woman,  of  a  beauty  so  rare  and  noble  that  it  is  hard 
to  give  it  any  comparison  :  with  hair  black  as  night  and 


36  SOCIAL  SUCCESSES  [chap,  hi 

skin  clear  olive,  without  colour,  except  that  she  had  an 
unexpected  way  of  blushing  a  sudden  red,  which 
ebbed  and  flowed,  mounting  as  she  spoke  and  receding 
as  quickly ;  and  eyes  which  her  generation  have 
exhausted  themselves  in  praising :  "  passionate  eyes, 
whose  rarely  lifted  lashes — black,  long,  and  silky — 
made  them  seem  so  much  more  soft  than  they  really 
were." 

There  is  a  characteristic  bit  among  Miss  Kemble's 
letters  not  so  often  quoted  as  her  other  allusions  to 
Mrs.  Norton  : 

"March  8,  1831. 
"  Tuesday  I  played  Belvidera.  I  was  quite  nervous 
acting  it  again  after  so  long  a  period.  After  the  play 
my  father  and  I  went  to  Lord  Dacre's  and  had  a 
pleasant  party  enough.  Mrs.  Norton  was  there,  more 
entertaining  and  blindingly  beautiful  than  ever. 
Henry  [Miss  Kemble's  brother]  desired  me  to  give  her 
his  desperate  love,  to  which  she  replied  by  sending  the 
poor  youth  her  deadly  scorn.  Lord  Melbourne  desired 
to  be  introduced  to  me.  I  think  if  he  likes  he  shall  be 
the  decrepit  old  nobleman  you  are  so  afraid  of  my 
marrying.  I  was  charmed  with  his  face,  voice,  and 
manners.  We  dine  with  him  next  Wednesday,  and  I 
will  write  you  word  if  the  impression  deepens." 

The  dinner,  however,  did  not  come  up  to  the 
pretty  young  actress's  expectations.  All  three 
Sheridan  sisters  were  there,  and  the  host  was  so 
absorbed  by  Mrs.  Norton  that  the  other  guests  were 
overshadowed. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LITERATURE    AND    POLITICS 

The  year  1831  marks  the  flood-tide  of  Caroline 
Norton's  first  successes.  In  this  year  she  was  first 
presented  at  Court  in  the  Drawing-room  held  by  the 
new  King,  William  IV.,  and  Queen  Adelaide,  on 
April  26,  when  her  splendid  beauty  made  something 
of  a  sensation  ;  and  from  this  time  on,  her  name  begins 
to  appear  in  the  fashionable  journals  which,  unless  for 
some  good  reason,  seldom  used  their  space  for  com- 
moners in  their  resumes  of  fashionable  doings. 

And  it  was  during  this  same  season  that  she  was 
further  gratified  by  seeing  a  play  of  hers  staged  and 
acted  at  the  Covent  Garden  Theatre.  The  Gypsy 
Father,  with  the  "g"  pronounced  hard,  as  one  of  the 
reviews  of  it  is  careful  to  tell  us,  was  hardly  a  brilliant 
success.  But  it  was  repeated  several  times  to  a  dress 
circle  and  private  boxes  full  of  fine  folk,  as  Fanny 
Kemble  tells  us. 

"  Tuesday,  May  31. 

11  Lady  Seymour  and  her  husband,  with  Corinneand 
Mr.  Norton,  in  a  box  opposite  ours.  What  a  terrible 
piece  !  What  atrocious  situations  and  ferocious  circum- 
stances, tinkering,  starving,  hanging,  like  a  chapter  out 
of  the  Newgate  Calendar.  But,  after  all,  she  is  in  the 
right — she  has  given  the  public  what  they  desire.  .  .  . 
Of  course  it  made  one  cry  horribly." 

A  second   edition   of  "The  Undying  One,"  with  a 
37 


38  LITERATURE  AND   POLITICS        [chap,  iv 

short  biographical  notice  of  the  poem  and  the  author, 
also  appeared  in  this  year  in  Colburn's  New  Monthly 
Magazine.  Eraser's  published  her  likeness  in  a  line- 
engraving  by  the  clever  young  Scotsman,  Maclise, 
if  anything  so  really  unlike  her  as  the  slender  being, 
with  downcast  eyes  and  small  head  poised  upon  a 
swanlike  neck,  drawing  water  from  a  tea-urn  with 
fingers  delicately  crooked  could  be  called  a  likeness. 
Another  picture  of  her  by  the  same  hand  appears  a 
little  later  in  the  same  periodical,  giving  her  a  place 
among  "  Regina's  Maids  of  Honour,"  the  female  con- 
tributors to  the  paper  so-called  in  those  fantastic  days. 
But  what  she  wrote,  or  how  much  she  wrote  for  that 
magazine  during  her  first  years  of  literary  apprentice- 
ship, it  is  impossible  to  tell,  from  the  habit  of  the 
writers  for  the  more  serious  periodicals  of  that  day  of 
publishing  their  work  unsigned.  Her  successes  were 
not,  however,  merely  social  and  literary.  At  no  other 
period  of  her  life  did  her  husband  seem  more  proud 
and  fond  of  her  than  during  the  year  when  her  in- 
fluence with  the  Home  Secretary  got  him  a  judgeship 
in  the  Lambeth  Division  of  the  Metropolitan  Police 
Courts,  with  a  salary  of  £1,000  a  year.  It  was  a 
position  which  exactly  suited  his  tastes  and  capacities. 
For  three  days  a  week,  between  the  hours  of  twelve  and 
five,  he  had  to  judge  cases  brought  before  him  in  the 
Lambeth  Police  Court.  His  companions  on  the  Bench 
were  gentlemen,  and  the  office,  while  requiring  no 
especial  talent  or  knowledge  beyond  the  simplest 
points  of  common  law,  yet  conferred  a  dignity  upon 
the  holder,  specially  gratifying  to  a  man  of  his  temper. 
He  liked  it  so  well,  in  fact,  that  he  could  not  persuade 
himself  to  part  with  it,  not  even  when  his  relations  to 
the  man  from  whom  he  received  it  assumed  such  a 
character  that  his  retention  of  it  laid  him  open  to  the 
harshest  criticism.  He  only  resigned  a  few  years 
before  his  death,  when  his  length  of  service  enabled 
him  to  retire  on  a  pension. 

In  the  first  blush   of  his  improved  circumstances, 


1 831]    A  PLACE  FOR  GEORGE  NORTON      39 

he  set  up  a  cabriolet  of  his  own,  and  would  sometimes 
stop  on  his  way  home  from  his  duty  to  take  his  wife 
to  drive.  They  also  entered  upon  extensive  alterations 
of  the  house  in  Storey's  Gate,  which  are  described 
in  the  following  letter  of  Caroline  Norton  to  her 
child's  nurse,  who  had  been  sent  off  with  the  baby  by 
the  steam-packet  to  Margate  to  avoid  the  confusion  at 
home.  I  give  the  letter  nearly  at  length,  though  it  has 
already  been  published  in  the  Appendix  of  the  "  Maclise 
Gallery  of  Portraits,"  edited  by  William  Bates,  because 
it  shows  a  side  of  her  character  often  overlooked  in 
the  more  turbulent  manifestations  of  her  genius — a 
very  simple,  womanly  side,  interested  in  the  tiny, 
daily  details  of  domestic  life,  attached  to  her  child, 
full  of  wifely  subservience  to  her  husband. 

"  King's  Gate. 
"  Dear  Mrs.  Moore, 

11 1  was  very  thankful  to  get  news  of  my  darling, 
and  I  am  thankful  he  is  out  of  the  poisonous  smell 
of  paint,  which  made  me  so  ill  I  was  forced  to 
sleep  at  Georgie  Seymour's  one  night.  There  never 
was  such  a  mess.  But  we  are  having  the  nursery  done 
very  nicely.  We  have  changed  the  buff  to  stone- 
colour,  which  makes  it  less  like  a  garret,  and  larger 
and  lighter-looking,  and  I  have  ordered  the  white 
press  to  have  new  panes  in  it  where  they  are  broken, 
and  to  be  grained  and  varnished  as  nearly  as  possible 
like  your  drawers,  which  it  stands  on.  .  .  .  The  green 
windows  make  the  house  look  so  dark  that  we  are 
going  to  have  the  house  painted  to  look  like  stone, 
the  balcony  carried  out  to  the  end  of  Mr.  Furnivall's, 
and  two  little  mock  windows  to  match  the  storeroom, 
which  will  make  the  house  look  at  least  four  feet 
larger  in  appearance.  There  are  improvements  for 
you!  I  trust  in  Heaven  my  little  one  will  not  have 
caught  cold  from  the  rain  the  night  of  your  arrival, 
and  that  you  got  comfortable  lodgings.  Tell  me  in 
your  next  letter  more  about  them,  whether  they  face 
the  sea,  and  whether  you  have  money  enough ;  how 
Spencer  liked  the  steam-packet,  whether  he  has  had 
any  return  of  the  relaxation  and  sickness,  poor  lamb  ! 
I  miss  him  dreadfully,  and  am  continually  forgetting 


4o  LITERATURE   AND   POLITICS       [chap,  iv 

that  he  is  not  in  the  house,  and  listening  for  the  little 
voice  on  the  stairs.  Mr.  Norton  still  intends  coming  on 
Monday,  but  as  he  returns  on  Wednesday,  I  think  an 
hotel  would  be  as  cheap  as  lodgings,  unless  the  person 
you  are  with  could  let  us  have  a  bedroom  and  a 
sitting-room  for  the  two  nights,  which  is  hardly  worth 
while.  Perhaps  Mr.  Norton  will  let  me  stay  a  week 
at  Ramsgate  ;  in  that  case,  if  we  had  a  little  sitting- 
room  I  could  sleep  with  you,  if  your  bed  is  a  good 
size ;  or,  if  they  have  a  room  with  a  single  bed  for  me, 
we  might  eat  our  meals  there  and  have  no  sitting-room. 
Pray,  dear  old  woman,  ask  about  and  get  something 
low ;  I  am  sure  if  it  is  cheap  Mr.  Norton  will  let  me 
stay  the  week,  and  I  am  so  poisoned  here  that  if  I  do 
not  get  a  mouthful  of  fresh  air  my  little  November 
baboon  will  be  born  with  a  green  face.  Try  and 
manage  this  for  me.  .  .  .  The  King  is  to  sign  the 
Patent  for  Mr.  Norton  to  be  made  Honourable  on 
Monday,  and  then  it  is  to  be  hoped  the  John  Bull 
paper  will  be  satisfied.  Mr.  Norton  is  very  glad,  and 
Lord  Melbourne  has  been  very  kind  about  it.  Lord 
Melbourne  is  better,  and  offered  me  two  tickets  for 
the  House  of  Lords  on  Thursday  to  hear  the  King's 
Speech.  But  I  must  come  to  my  Too-too,  who,  I  hope, 
will  give  me  a  ticket  when  he  is  Lord  Grantley.  There, 
kiss  your  old  mother,  and  send  me  a  message  in  your 
next  letter.  Here  is  a  little  picture  for  you.  God 
bless  you. 

"Caroline  Norton." 

The  picture  referred  to  in  the  letter  is  a  little 
sketch  of  herself  in  pen-and-ink  at  the  foot  of  the 
page.  All  three  sisters  were  in  the  habit  of  thus 
illustrating  their  correspondence,  and  Caroline  especi- 
ally showed  therein  an  admirable  talent,  as  well  as 
a  dangerously  keen  sense  of  her  own  and  her  friends' 
absurdities. 

The  next  letter  is  written  to  her  husband  in  the 
same  summer  while  she  was  away  on  a  visit  in 
Wiltshire  to  her  sister,  Lady  Seymour,  and  shows 
better  than  any  mere  telling  how  the  birth  of  one 
child  and  the  promise  of  another  had  softened  and 
tamed  her  feeling  for  him  : 


1831]  LETTERS  41 

"  Maiden  Bradley,  Mere,  Wilts, 
"  Tuesday,  July  12. 

"  Dearest  George, 

"  Our  chicken  came  safe  to  hand  this  morning, 
it  having  rained  torrents  nearly  all  night.  He  rested 
at  Mere,  and  came  on  in  the  gig  Seymour  sent,  and 
I  have  just  seen  him  washed  and  put  to  bed  in  a  large, 
high,  airy  room ;  he  has  been  in  high  spirits  all  day, 
playing  with  the  pet  lamb  and  the  beagle  puppy,  the 
latter  of  whom  shows  a  decided  attachment  to  his  little 
companion,  but  the  lamb  is  really  so  stupid  and  so 
awkward  that  I  wish  it  roasted  a  dozen  times  a  day. 
I  think  and  hope  Menny  has  not  taken  cold,  but 
Mrs.  Moore  says  ^that  when  the  rain  came  on  very 
heavy  the  outside  passengers  crammed  in,  and  as 
they  were  very  wet,  it  is  a  bad  chance  for  him.  I 
hear  Mr.  Bush,  the  doctor,  is  a  very  experienced 
person,  with  the  practice  of  several  parishes  in  his 
own  hands,  so  I  do  not  feel  so  unhappy  at  being 
parted  from  my  beloved  Herbert.  I  got  a  little  scrawl 
from  you  this  morning  (which,  by  the  omission  of  the 
word  Mere  on  the  directions,  travelled  to  three  or  four 
towns),  reproaching  me  for  not  writing,  whereas  I 
have  written  every  day  except  last  night,  when  I 
thought  I  would  wait  till  the  arrival  of  my  dear 
Lambkin,  whose  coming  gave  me  great  joy.  Your 
letters  are  too  short,  sir,  and  if  you  do  not  make  them 
longer,  I  shall  believe  you  are  looking  on  at  the 
domestic  happiness  of  that  amiable  young  person  and 
her  bridegroom,  to  whom  you  were  charitable  enough 
to  pay  a  visit  some  time  since.  Our  pony  chaise 
comes  home  to-morrow,  and  then,  I  suppose,  I  shall 
see  Longleat  [the  country  place  of  the  Marquis  of 
Bath]  and  tell  you  something  of  the  country,  but  there 
is  nothing  to  tell  about  close  by.  I  dreamed  last  night 
that  you  were  dying,  and  two  old  maids  told  you 
stories  of  me,  and  then  persuaded  me  that  you  would 
not  see  me ;  but  I  rushed  into  your  room  and  found 
it  was  all  a  lie,  and  that  you  were  dying  for  my 
company ;  and  then  I  thought,  as  I  was  sitting  by  you 
explaining,  I  saw  you  grow  quite  unconscious  and 
die,  wherefore  I  woke  with  a  flood  of  tears,  and 
walked  up  and  down  with  bare  feet,  till  Mrs.  Moore 
arrived  and  informed  me  that  you  were  quite  well 
and  no  old  maids  with  you.      I  dreamed,  the  night 

6 


42  LITERATURE  AND   POLITICS        [chap,  iv 

before,  the  baby  was  drowning,  and  I  saw  him  floating 
down  the  river,  but  no  one  would  attend  to  me, 
because  I  was  mad!  Horrid  dreams  beset  me.  I 
cannot  bear  sleeping  alone  ;  hem  !  You  ought  to  come 
down  and  protect  me.  This  morning  I  broke  my 
already  broken  tooth  quite  up  into  my  jaw,  and  it 
almost  put  out  my  !eye  with  the  pain.  I  drew  the 
fragment  myself  with  much  trouble  with  the  pincers 
in  my  dressing-case,  and  was  exactly  twenty-four 
minutes  at  it !  Pity  my  sufferings  !  I  will  write  every 
day  of  myself  and  the  two  children. 

"Ever  yours  affectionately, 

"  Caroline." 

But  this  better  understanding  between  her  and  her 
husband  was  soon  to  suffer  a  serious  strain. 

In  November  of  the  same  year  her  second  son, 
Brinsley,  was  born,  and  in  spite  of  this  new  addition 
to  the  household,  in  January  1832  George  Norton's 
elder  sister,  Augusta,  came  to  pay  her  brother  a  long 
visit.  It  was  the  same  sister  who  had  made  rather 
a  favourite  of  Caroline  while  she  was  still  a  schoolgirl 
at  Wonersh ;  but  the  old  liking  was  not  strong  enough 
to  persist  in  the  more  intimate  and  difficult  relation 
of  sisters-in-law.  Miss  Norton  was  something  of  an 
invalid,  and  needed  the  services  of  her  own  maid  to 
wait  on  her.  She  was  also  an  exceedingly  eccentric 
person,  and,  when  she  did  appear  in  the  world,  affected 
a  sort  of  Bloomer  costume,  a  short  dress  with  trousers, 
her  hair  cropped  like  a  man's,  with  various  other 
masculine  singularities. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  no  people  are  so 
sensitive  to  ridicule  as  those  who  have  a  talent  for 
it.  It  is  therefore  not  unnatural  that  Caroline  should 
have  shrunk  a  little  from  accompanying  Miss  Norton 
in  public.  Thence  arose  real  evasions,  fancied  slights, 
the  retirement  of  the  visitor  to  ,'her  room  for  days, 
complaints  and  self-justification  to  George  Norton, 
who  at  last,  in  a  fit  of  temper,  declared  that  his  wife 
should  go  nowhere  his  sister  was  not  invited,  that 
he  would  cut  the  traces  of  the  carriage  if  she  presumed 


1832]  MISS   NORTON  43 

to  disobey  him.  As  this  lady's  visit  lasted  till 
April,  and  Mrs.  Norton  continued  to  appear  at  most 
of  the  fashionable  gatherings  during  the  winter  of 
1832,  besides  entertaining  constantly  at  home,  we 
must  believe  that  the  usual  compromise  was  effected 
between  husband  and  wife.  But  there  was  an  un- 
gracious influence  at  work  about  them  both  all 
through  that  winter  :  resentment  and  impatience  on 
the  part  of  the  sister  at  each  new  evidence  of  the 
brother's  subservience  to  his  wife's  influence,  irritation 
on  the  part  of  the  young  hostess  at  this  alien  presence 
at  her  fireside — this  unfriendly  critic  of  herself,  her 
friends,  the  management  of  her  household,  which  last 
must  often  have  suffered  in  the  struggle  to  combine 
the  obligations  of  a  woman  writing  hard  for  money, 
and  a  woman  of  the  world  going  almost  every  night 
into  society.  There  was  another  still  more  painful 
point  of  difference  between  these  two  sisters-in-law, 
for  Miss  Norton's  visit  had  fallen  in  the  very  midst 
of  the  excitement  of  the  Reform  Bill,  and  height 
of  the  struggle  for  or  against  the  passage  of  this 
measure  between  Lord  Grey's  Ministry  and  the  Tory 
opposition. 

George  Norton,  as  a  beneficiary  of  the  Whig 
Government,  must  have  somewhat  subdued  his  here- 
ditary prejudices  on  the  subject,  but  Augusta,  like  all 
the  Nortons,  was  a  high  Tory ;  and  great  must  have 
been  her  disgust  at  seeing  her  brother's  wife  in  the 
forefront  of  those  female  politicians  who  supported 
the  Bill  through  thick  and  thin.  At  this  late  day  it 
is  hard  to  realise  the  wild  and  general  excitement  of 
that  period,  even  among  people  usually  indifferent  to 
politics — the  bitter  personal  feeling  between  the  Bill's 
supporters  and  the  Opposition,  the  friendships  severed 
for  years  or  never  reunited,  the  private  quarrels 
which  can  be  traced  back  to  this  great  public  question 
— the  first  and  most  fruitful  cause  of  all  subsequent 
ill-feeling  and  misunderstanding. 

In  this  case,  at  least,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 


44  LITERATURE  AND   POLITICS         [chap,  iv 

nothing  in  her  future  was  to  work  Mrs.  Norton  greater 
harm  than  the  unfriendliness  of  this  particular  sister- 
in-law,  an  unfriendliness  which  might  always  have 
been  latent  in  the  fundamental  difference  of  those  two 
temperaments,  but  which  would  never  have  been 
fanned  into  such  a  burning  flame  of  spite  and  mal- 
evolence as  it  later  manifested  without  some  such 
blast  of  public  excitement  as  the  passing  of  the 
Reform  Bill  in  1832. 

A  pretty  letter  to  Babbage,  rather  a  great  personage 
in  his  day,  the  inventor  of  a  calculating  machine  and 
a  writer  on  the  science  of  mathematics,  begging  him 
to  interest  himself  in  the  great  struggle  is  amusing 
evidence  of  her  activities  during  this  period. 

"Saturday,  May  2,  1832. 

"  Dear  Sir, 

"  You  will,  I  fear,  think  me  very  impertinent  in 
addressing  you,  but  my  sister,  Lady  Seymour  (who  is 
more  fortunate  in  being  better  acquainted  with  you), 
is  in  Wiltshire,  and  Seymour  in  Devonshire,  where 
we  heartily  wish  you  could  pay  him  a  visit.  I  don't 
know  whether  Lady  Seymour's  anxiety  for  Lord 
John's  [Russell's]  success  will  weigh  with  you.  She 
was  conceited  enough  to  say  to  me  one  day  when  we 
were  reading  your  '  Apology '  in  Mrs.  Leicester  Stan- 
hope's album,  ■  Mr.  Babbage  likes  me  ! '  But  whether 
your  imagined  preference  be  great  enough  to  induce 
you  to  exert  yourself  in  the  same  cause  as  Seymour,  I 
dare  not  conjecture.  All  I  can  say  is,  that  it  would 
be  doing  a  great  favour  not  only  to  Lord  John  but  to 
friends  of  yours  who  are  also  friends  of  his.  It  is  the 
first  year  Georgie  Seymour  has  seemed  eager  about 
politics;  you  will  not  instruct  her  so  harshly  in 
philosophy  as  to  teach  her  how  to  bear  a  first  dis- 
appointment ? 

"  Not  having  your  name  to  aid  us  is  as  if  you  made 
a  long  speech  in  favour  of  Mr.  Parker — which  is  not, 
surely,  what  you  intend  ;  is  it  ? 

"  Pray,  pray,  do  not  be  angry  with  me — great  anxiety 
will  make  one  bold,  and  the  last  thing  I  have  in- 
tended is  any  disrespect  towards  you.  I  know  it  will 
be  a  great  disappointment  to  Georgie,  I  am  certain  it 


1832]  PORTRAIT   BY   HAYTER  45 

will  be  a  great  disappointment  to  Seymour.  For 
myself,  I  do  not  say  anything  but  that  it  is  not  my 
first  year  of  anxiety  in  the  cause.  Whichever  way 
you  decide,  let  me  have  one  line  to  say  you  are  not 
displeased  with  me.  I  shall  value  it  as  an  autograph 
even  if  you  refuse  our  petition. 

"  May  I  get  up  a  petition  with  many  signatures  (all 
ladies)  begging  you  to  go  down  and  vote  ? 
"  With  repeated  apologies, 

"  Believe  me,  dear  Sir, 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"  Caroline  Norton. 
11 2,  Storey's  Gate,  St.  James's  Park." 

The  soft  persuasions  of  this  letter  had  their  desired 
effect  on  Mr.  Babbage,  who  remained  a  warm  friend  of 
Mrs.  Norton's  for  many  years  to  come. 

It  was  during  the  last  winter  of  this  stormy  struggle 
that  she  sat  for  her  portrait  to  John  Hayter,  a  fashion- 
able painter  of  the  day.  He  painted  her  twice,  once 
in  profile  and  once  nearly  full  face,  with  her  familiar 
downcast  look  ;  this  last  picture  especially,  very  hand- 
some, very  Eastern-looking,  and,  according  to  Fanny 
Kemble,  very  like  her,  but  "  not  her  handsomest  look." 
One  wonders  whether  it  was  the  custom  in  those  days 
for  lovely  young  married  women  to  sit  unchaperoned 
to  fashionable  painters  in  the  latter's  studios,  or 
whether  the  incident  told  in  the  following  extract  from 
Moore's  diary  is  only  another  example  of  the  daring 
unconventionality  which  gave  society  so  many  handles 
against  Mrs.  Norton  when  her  great  break  with  her 
husband  put  her  at  the  mercy  of  public  opinion. 

"Aprilc,. — Called  upon  Mrs.  Norton;  found  her 
preparing  to  go  to  Hayter's,  who  was  painting  a 
picture  of  her;  and  offered  to  walk  with  her.  Had 
accordingly  a  very  brisk  and  agreeable  walk  across 
the  two  Parks,  and  took  her  in  the  highest  bloom  of 
beauty  to  Hayter,  who  said  he  wished  that  some  one 
would  always  put  her  through  this  process  before  she 
sat  to  him.     Hayter's  picture  promises  well. 


46  LITERATURE  AND  POLITICS        [chap,  iv 

"  Happening  to  mention  that  almost  everything  I 
wrote  was  composed  in  my  garden  or  the  fields,  '  One 
would  guess  that  of  your  poetry,'  said  Mrs.  Norton. 
1  It  quite  smells  of  them.' " 

It  was  in  this  year  1832  that  she  assumed  the 
editorship  of  La  Belle  Assemblee  and  Court  Magazine, 
a  small  monthly  periodical  whose  name  denotes  the 
class  of  people  it  was  expected  to  please,  not,  as  it 
would  first  seem,  any  attempt  to  chronicle  the  doings 
and  fashions  of  the  Court  itself.  To  this  she  con- 
tributed a  variety  of  articles,  stories,  and  poetry,  and 
book  reviews,  signed  and  unsigned,  the  most  note- 
worthy among  them  being  a  series  of  satirical  papers 
on  "  The  Peculiar  Customs  of  the  County  of  Middle- 
sex," "  The  Invisibility  of  London  Husbands,"  "  Great 
Ladies,"  "The  Law  of  Libel,"  etc. 

Later  in  the  summer  she  went  with  her  children 
and  her  husband  to  Scotland — he  to  pay  his  usual 
visit  to  Lady  Menzies  on  Loch  Rannoch — she  as  soon 
as  she  could  to  escape  that  ungracious  hostess  for 
kinder  friends  of  her  own.  From  the  house  of  one 
of  these  she  writes  the  following  letter  to  her 
husband. 

"  Dear  George, 

"  I  fear  this  will  be  but  a  hurried  line,  for  they 
do  run  about  so  all  day  in  the  open  air  that  time 
slips  away  till  we  dress  for  dinner.  Penny  [Spencer] 
is  very  well  indeed,  and  I  have  bought  some  flannel 
at  Dundee  to  roll  him  in.  I  have  not  heard  again  of 
Baby. 

"Lady is  come  with  a  sweet  little  child  for  Penny 

to  play  with.     Lord ,  and  Mr. ,  and  Lord 

come  to-morrow.     We  are  asked  to  Camperdown.     I 

saw  the  handsome  old  Lord  and  a  young  one. 

Come  back,  darling,  I  am  wishing  for  you.  To  drive 
four  small  piebald  ponies,  and  swing,  and  flinging 
beech-nuts  at  one  another's  heads  is  all  we  do;  and 
very  good  sport  it  is.  I  shall  write  you  again  to- 
morrow or  next  day,  and  pray  write  to  me.     I  have 


After  the  portrait  by  John  Hayter. 


1832]  LETTER   FROM   SCOTLAND  47 

not  heard   of  you   yet.      Direct Perthshire.      It 

comes  quicker. 

"  Tell  Mrs.  Charles  Norton  there  never  was  any- 
thing so  beautiful  as  the  room  she  is  to  have  in  right 
of  being  a  bride — an  enormous  room  looking  on  the 
lawn,  and  ebony  furniture  and  the  most  magnificent 
things  in  it.     Ditto  dressing-room  for  Charles. 

"  The  house  is  lovely,  and  there  are  eight  new  rooms 
furnished.     God  bless  you.     Love  to  all. 

"  Ever  your 

11  Carey. 
"Hon.  G.  Norton, 

"  Rannoch  Lodge, 

"  August  30,  1832." 


CHAPTER  V 

GEORGE   NORTON— FAMILY   LETTERS 

The  next  winter  there  were  no  disturbing  visitors  at 
Storey's  Gate,  and  there  was  even  more  entertaining 
in  the  tiny  drawing-room. 

We  read  of  a  birthday  dinner  given  by  his  sister  to 
Brinsley  Sheridan,  the  eldest  of  the  family,  just  home 
from  India,  at  which  not  the  least  distinguished  guest 
was  young  Mr.  Disraeli,  then  chiefly  known  as  his 
father's  son  and  the  author  of  the  clever  novel,  "  Vivian 
Grey."  The  young  writer  was  very  much  taken  with 
all  the  Sheridans,  and  his  letters  written  to  his  sister 
during  this  year  and  the  next  have  frequent  mention 
of  hours  spent  among  them,  their  beauty,  their  wit, 
their  agreeable  companionship,  in  terms  too  often 
quoted  to  be  more  than  referred  to  here.  But  there  is 
one  funny  little  incident  belonging  to  this  time  and 
this  connection,  which  comes  from  another  source,  and 
may  well  be  repeated  as  it  was  told  long  afterwards  to 
the  American  Minister,  Motley,  by  Lady  DufTerin. 

"  He  was  once  dining  with  my  insufferable  brother- 
in-law,  Mr.  Norton,  (of  course,  long  before  the 
separation),  when  the  host  begged  him  to  drink  a 
particular  kind  of  wine,  saying  he  had  probably  never 
tasted  anything  so  good  before.  Disraeli  agreed  that 
the  wine  was  very  good. 

" '  Well,'   said   Norton,    '  I    have  got    wine   twenty 
times  as  good  in  my  cellar.' 
48 


1833-4]  THE   "ENGLISH   ANNUAL"  49 

"  '  No  doubt — no  doubt,'  said  Dizzy,  looking  round 
the  table,  '  but,  my  dear  fellow,  this  is  quite  good 
enough  for  such  canaille  as  you  have  got  to-day.' 

"  Everybody  saw  that  the  remark  was  intended  as  a 
slap  for  Mr.  Norton,  except  that  individual  himself, 
who  was  too  obtuse  to  feel  it." 


He  was  probably  often  too  obtuse  to  feel  it,  and 
yet  often  ill  at  his  ease  in  the  society  his  wife  was 
able  to  gather  around  her.  So  far  removed  were 
those  two  from  each  other  in  tastes  and  capacities, 
that  nothing  could  be  permanent  between  them  but 
the  discomfort  of  living  together.  Though,  as  is  often 
the  case  with  such  eternal  unfitness,  when  everything 
was  prosperous  and  every  one  was  well,  things  would 
move  along  with  every  appearance  of  real  harmony. 
But  let  once  come  the  strain  of  illness,  or  weariness, 
or  disappointment,  and  then  all  the  wretched  old 
differences  sprang  to  the  surface  again. 

In  the  spring  of  1833  Mrs.  Norton  found  herself 
again  about  to  have  a  child,  and  for  the  first  time  she 
seems  to  have  felt  herself  unequal  to  all  the  demands 
her  life  continued  to  make  upon  her. 

Besides  the  Court  Magazine,  she  had  assumed  the 
editorship  of  the  English  Annual  for  1834,  one  of  those 
publications  so  fashionable  in  her  own  day,  appearing 
just  before  each  new  year,  composed  of  beautiful  steel 
engravings  and  sentimental  extracts  in  prose  and 
verse,  prepared  especially  for  and  by  the  English 
upper  classes.  Indeed,  the  very  existence  of  these 
Annuals  depended  on  titled  scribblers  who  were 
content  to  furnish  their  contributions  merely  for  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  themselves  in  print,  or  on  fledgling 
poets  who  liked  to  find  themselves  in  such  company. 
The  most  successful  editor  was,  therefore,  some  woman, 
like  the  Countess  of  Blessington,  whose  social  and 
literary  distinction  could  draw  about  her  the  greatest 
number  of  these  unpaid  contributors. 

Mrs.    Norton's   own  contributions   to    the  English 

7 


50      GEORGE   NORTON— FAMILY   LETTERS     [chap,  v 

Annual  during  the  two  years  she  conducted  it  were 
chiefly  old  articles  in  verse  and  prose  which  had  already 
appeared  in  her  own  Court  Magazine,  but  her  friends, 
and  especially  her  own  family,  were  all  applied  to  for 
original  manuscripts.  An  amusing  letter  written 
to  her  sister,  Lady  Seymour,  hardly  three  weeks 
before  her  last  child  was  born,  gives  a  good  idea  of 
her  various  and  exhausting  activities  during  this 
critical  period. 

"Augusts,  1833. 

(Postmark). 

"  Pine  not,  oh  daughter  of  the  Maccacey  tribe, 
neither  cease  to  adorn  thy  hair  with  sea-shell  and 
coral,  for  thy  tribe  have  not  forgotten  thee,  but  see 
thy  place  still  empty  among  them,  and  weep  (when 
they  have  time)  that  thou  art  in  the  land  of  Bantams 
while  they  are  in  the  Town  of  Fowl  Deeds." 

[Lady  Seymour  was  very  much  interested  in  country 
pleasures,  and  had  white  and  coloured  bantams.  The 
title  by  which  she  is  here  addressed  refers  to  one  of 
her  contributions  to  her  sister's  magazine.] 

"  I  have  been  going  to  write  for  some  days,  but  have 
been  waiting  till  Ferraro  had  finished  a  little  frame  for 
a  card  drawing  of  Hermione  [Lady  Seymour's  eldest 
daughter],  which  my  fingers  sketched  and  painted  the 
last  day  of  her  sojourn  at  Hampton  Court.  I  drove 
down  in  the  gig  with  Spencer  and  John,  with  three 
pencils  and  a  night  gown,  to  the  said  Palace,  and  then 
and  there  achieved  the  deed.  I  trust  you  feel  obliged 
to  me,  though  I  am  afraid  the  many  discontented 
touches  which  I  have  given  it  since  have  destroyed 
my  likeness ;  it  was  done  in  a  hurry,  and  she  could  not 
endure  sitting.  The  moment  a  frame  is  ready  I  will 
send  it  down.  I  am  very  busy  writing  just  now. 
Colburn  has  re-engaged  me  for  the  New  Monthly,  and 
I  have  Friendships  Offering  and  the  Keepsake  to  see  to 
before  the  10th,  besides  my  magazine  (for  which  I  am 
in  hourly  expectation  of  a  long  story  from  Seymour, 
or  a  continuation  of  his  'Few  Words  on  Imposture'), 
and  which  must  be  ready  by  the  15th. 

11  Mamma  is  in  town ;  why,  she  does  not  say,  but  she 
never  went  further  than  Portsmouth,  and  met  in  the 


1833]  LETTERS  TO   LADY  SEYMOUR  51 

coach  from  thence  a  female  cretin  who  had  travelled  in 
the  Cordillera  Mountains,  and  whom  she  engaged 
immediately  for  the  Court  Magazine. 

"  Norton  is  surprised  at  my  wanting  to  move  any- 
where,1 and  assures  me  he  has  only  money  to  take 
himself  to  Scotland ;  but  I  think  he  will  finally  allow 
three  weeks  or  so  at  the  Isle  of  Wight,  as  it  will 
be  very  cheap  in  September,  the  regattas,  etc.,  being 
over. 

"  The  Treasurer  of  Covent  Garden  and  Drury  Lane 
called  on  me  to  request  me  to  '  oppose  by  every  vote 
in  my  power  the  Dramatic  Representation  Bill,  and  to 
stretch  out  the  hand  of  their  greatest  dramatist's  grand- 
daughter to  save  the  two  large  theatres  from  ruin.' 
I  thought  they  exaggerated  the  strength  of  my  arm, 
but  promised  them  fair,  and  the  Bill  has  failed  in 
consequence. 

"  Farewell.  Love  to  Seymour  and  that  dear  Fatty 
your  youngest  daughter. 

"  Yours  ever  affectionately, 

"  Car." 

A  little  later  comes  the  following  : 

11  Dearest  Georgie, 

11  I  send  Mione's  picture.  Perhaps  you  will 
think  it  too  harsh ;  the  eye  of  a  fond  parent  has  a 
beam  in  it  which  prevents  it  seeing  clearly.  I  can 
improve  and  alter  it  at  any  time  when  you  have  it 
with  you.  The  beastly  frame  has  been  the  cause  of 
the  delay. 

"  I  have  had  another  giggle  ;  a  book  was  sent  me 
with  a  very  civil  note  begging  me  to  accept  So-and-So's 
little  tract  upon  the  '  Truth.'  1  read  it,  and  thought  it 
was  some  religious  man  looking  after  me,  but  opening 
the  parcel  before  I  went  to  bed,  I  was  agreeably 
surprised  at  finding  a  tract  on  the  'Teeth,'  by  Mr. 
Nicholles,  surgeon-dentist.  I  opened  it :  it  was  a 
good-sized  book,  bound  in  crimson  silk  and  beauti- 
fully printed,  and  after  the  title  page  came  a  grey  satin 
presentation  page  inscribed  in  very  large  gilt  letters 
with  my  illustrious  name  ! 

1  After  her  confinement. 


52       GEORGE   NORTON— FAMILY   LETTERS    [chap,  v 

"Sunday. — I  giggle  not,  I  am  frenzied  with  rage. 
I  send  Mione  without  a  frame.  Think,  after  waiting 
so  long,  of  my  getting  a  horrid,  large,  cumbersome, 
coarse  thing,  forty  times  too  big,  and  the  oval  centre 
three  times  as  large  as  the  drawing.  I  am  so  dis- 
appointed. But  I  will  get  another — it  looks  so  much 
better  in  the  frame,  a  peculiarity  which  must  give  a 
great  idea  of  my  style  of  painting. 

"  Thank  Seymour  very  much  for  the  notice  of 
national  education.  I  thought  it  very  clever  and  droll, 
though  shocked  at  any  measure  of  this  Government 
being  abused  in  my  magazine.  Lord  Melbourne  was 
greatly  pleased  at  ■  The  Life  of  a  Woman  of  the  Maccay 
Tribe.'  Mrs.  Charles  [Norton]  wrote  me  so  funny  an 
account  of  the  bothers  of  moving  with  the  regiment 
that  I  have  printed  it,  '  with  additions  and  alterations,' 
in  the  magazine.  Anything  anybody  will  send  will  be 
gratefully  received  for  the  month  I  must  be  in  bed. 
I  hear  Nell  is  ill,  poor  thing,  and  none  the  better  for 
the  Isle  of  Wight.  Farewell.  I  think  you  will  not  hear 
from  me  again  till  the  great  event  is  over.  I  dare  say 
I  shall  have  a  boy,  because  my  heart  is  set  the  other 
way.  I  have,  however,  bought  a  white  hood  similar 
to  one  I  generally  gave  you,  and  trimmed  up  the  caps 
like  Mione's.  Love  to  Seymour.  Let  one  or  the  other 
inscribe  to  me  from  time  to  time,  as  these  waiting  days 
are  dull. 

"  Yours  very  affectionately, 

"  Carry." 


These  letters,  so  gay  and  courageous  in  their  tone, 
do  not  tell  half  the  strain  she  was  under  during  the 
months  before  her  baby  was  born.  She  was  always 
a  person  whose  sleep  was  easily  broken,  and  moreover 
she  was  so  extravagant  of  precious  forces  that  she 
often  wrote  far  into  the  night,  at  high  pressure, 
to  complete  her  tasks  for  the  day.  In  the  day  she 
was  at  times  languid,  irritable,  impatient  beyond  her 
usual  habit,  of  everything  around  her.  And  her 
husband  responded  to  the  changed  touch  on  the  reins, 
like  a  vicious  horse.  That  summer  was  the  occasion 
of  an  access  of  brutal  ill-treatment  from  him — so  much 


1833]  QUARREL  WITH   HER   HUSBAND  53 

worse  than  anything  she  had  hitherto  experienced 
that  she  was  driven  for  the  first  time  to  make  an  effort 
to  escape  from  it.  They  had  had  one  of  their  long 
wrangling  discussions  at  dinner,  till  her  patience 
suddenly  gave  way,  and  she  left  him  abruptly, 
ordering  him  not  to  follow  her,  on  the  plea  that  she 
had  writing  to  do  in  the  drawing-room  which  must 
be  finished  that  night,  and  that  she  did  not  wish  to  be 
disturbed.  Her  manner  offended  her  husband's  dignity. 
He  was  further  outraged  to  find  that  her  fit  of  quite 
excusable  petulance  had  carried  her  so  far  as  to  make 
her  lock  the  dining-room  door  after  her  as  she  went 
out.  There  was  another  door  to  the  dining-room, 
opening  direct  into  the  Park.  It  was  quite  easy  for 
him  to  let  himself  out  by  this  and  walk  round  the 
corner  to  the  front  door  on  Prince's  Court,  which  his 
servant  opened  at  his  knock.  But  he  had  not  the  kind 
of  temper  to  be  cooled  by  such  deliberate  action — quite 
the  reverse,  in  fact.  He  went  upstairs,  and  finding  the' 
drawing-room  door  also  locked,  wrenched  it  from  its 
fastening.  He  found  his  wife  sitting  at  her  little  table, 
writing,  with  her  maid  sewing  beside  her.  He  ordered 
the  woman  to  leave  the  room,  and  when  her  mistress 
commanded  her  at  the  same  moment  to  remain,  declaring 
that  she  was  afraid  to  be  left  alone  with  her  husband, 
he  turned  upon  everything  around  them,  throwing 
down  the  table,  scattering  in  every  direction  the 
papers  with  which  it  was  covered,  blowing  out  and 
smashing  the  candle.  Then,  calmed  perhaps  by  the 
effect  of  his  own  violence,  he  called  for  more  lights 
and  began  to  look  about  him  with  some  return  of 
his  usual  manner,  till,  seeing  his  wife  not  sufficiently 
cowed  to  conceal  her  scorn  of  such  an  extra- 
ordinary exhibition,  he  suddenly  fell  upon  her,  with 
a  fierceness  so  far  beyond  anything  she  had  ever  seen 
in  him  before  that  she  thought  he  had  gone  out  of 
his  senses,  and  actually  feared  for  her  life  as  she  felt 
herself  being  forced  out  of  the  room  and  down  the 
stairs.     It  was  only  with  the  help  of  her  servants  that 


54      GEORGE   NORTON— FAMILY   LETTERS     [chap,  v 

she  was  able  at  last  to  free  herself  from  his  hands,  and 
escape  upstairs  to  her  children's  nursery,  where  she 
spent  the  night. 

The  next  day  she  was  too  ill  to  follow  her  first 
inclinations  and  leave  his  house  for  ever ;  but  matters 
had  reached  a  point  when  her  own  family  felt  obliged 
to  interfere.  Her  family,  indeed,  were  more  severe 
on  her  husband  than  she  was,  insisting  upon  a  written 
pledge  from  him  to  them  of  his  future  good  behaviour 
before  they  allowed  her  to  come  back  to  him.  She 
apparently  would  have  been  content  with  his  word, 
and  some  sign  that  he  was  sorry  for  what  he  had 
made  her  suffer. 

It  is  not  surprising  under  the  circumstances  to  hear 
that  when  her  third  son  was  born,  August  26,  1833, 
she  had  a  very  bad  confinement,  and  a  slow  and 
difficult  recovery. 

There  is  a  letter  to  her  mother,  written  painfully  at 
intervals  during  her  illness. 

"  Wednesday ',  nth. 

"  Dearest  Mother, 

11 1  got  your  letter,  and  very  glad  I  was  to  get  it, 
for  the  chances  of  wind  and  wave  seemed  much  against 
safe  travelling.  [Mrs.  Sheridan  was  then  at  the  Isle 
of  Wight,  though  she  had  evidently  been  with  her 
daughter  at  the  time  of  the  latter's  confinement] 

"  I  beg  pardon  for  not  having  answered  it,  but  I  have 
been  obliged  to  see  Bull  and  look  over  papers  .  .  .  and 
what  with  Lilly's  restrictions  and  another  headache, 
all  my  friends  have  been  allowed  to  languish  in 
ignorance.  [Lilly  was  the  monthly  nurse.]  I  am 
going  on  perfectly  well  as  to  nursing,  etc.,  but  the 
pain  in  my  back  is  little  decreased,  and  has  taken 
to  itself  a  wife  in  the  shape  of  a  pain  down  my  left  leg 
to  the  knee  .  .  .  however,  this,  my  only  disease,  seems 
better  to-day  (my  first  day  in  the  drawing-room),  and 
I  hope  it  will  go  off,  and  just  give  me,  like  Georgia,  a 
good  year  for  hops. 

"  My  dear  little  Too-too  is  apparently  to  be  the 
beauty  of  the  family,  but  I  think  his  eyes  will  be 
black.    You  perceive  by  the  '  but '  that  I  prefer  the 


1833]     BULL  AND   "THE  COURT  MAGAZINE"  55 

blue  eye  and  black  eyebrows,  which  you  amused 
yourself  making  for  the  best-looking  of  your  progeny, 
and  indeed  that  sort  of  colouring  has  an  expression  of 
its  own,  independent  of  feature.    Look  at  Lady  Jersey." 

She  goes  back  to  her  interview  with  Bull,  the  pro- 
prietor of  her  Court  Magazine,  the  beginning  of  the 
difficulties  which  ended  in  her  giving  up  the  editor- 
ship of  that  little  periodical. 

"  After  all  my  trouble  and  ambitious  hopes,  Bull 
wants  to  do  his  work  himself;  in  fact,  to  have  no 
sub-editor.  I  have  promised  to  experimentalise 
accordingly,  but  I  regret  his  beginning  to  shrink 
from  expenses.  He  says  also  that  nine  or  ten  guineas 
a  month  are  all  that  can  be  spent  on  the  literary 
portion.  This  is  very  little ;  it  makes  two-thirds  of 
the  book  a  gratis  performance,  but  it  is  something 
to  have  one's  own  way. 

"  Nurse  me  the  magic  story  whose  banns  with  your 
novel  I  forbid,  and  let  me  have  a  colonist  story  about 
the  Cape,  Dutch  and  English ;  there  is  no  colony  of 
equal  importance  so  little  talked  about  as  the  Cape  (in 
books).  I  engage  you  professionally.  Also  Nelly,  if 
her  lazy  pate  will  send  to  the  pen  in  her  lazy  patte  an 
Inkle  and  Yarico  story  in  those  woods  she  is  so  fond 
of  painting.  .  .  . 

11 1  have  been  two  days  getting  through  this  elaborate 
epistle.  I  can't  see  and  I  can't  sit  up  without  getting 
blind  and  aching.  I  long  to  be  at  the  seaside.  Charles 
Sheridan  [her  uncle]  I  think  will  go  with  me,  and 
promises  me  the  use  of  a  horse  bought  from  Blank, 
and  therefore  liable  to  make  '  faux-pas.'  Give  my  love 
to  Nelly.  I  would  fain  write  to  her,  but  cannot.  Let 
her  write  to  me  again.  .  .  . 

"  Ever  your  affectionate 

"Car.  Norton." 

She  did  at  last  manage  to  get  away  with  all  three 
children  to  the  seaside  at  Worthing.  Later  in  the 
same  autumn  we  find  her  making  a  visit  with  her 
husband  in  the  country. 

A  letter  to  her  mother  describing  her  journey  there 


56       GEORGE  NORTON— FAMILY  LETTERS     [chap,  v 

gives  a  characteristic  glimpse  of  that  gentleman  as  a 
travelling  companion. 

"Dear  Mother, 

"  Here  we  are,  after  a  most  uncomfortable  and 
wearing  day.  We  got  up  at  six,  and  actually  at  eight, 
when  I  stood  prepared  to  start,  I  found  Norton  writing 
an  estimate  of  repairs  for  the  buggy!  It  was  nine 
before  we  got  to .  The  consequences  were  two- 
fold. First,  we  were  forced  to  take  four  horses  the  last 
thirty  miles  ;  and,  second,  we  quarrelled  about  it.  The 
roads  were  exceedingly  heavy,  and  I  was  starved,  so 
I  paid  the  extras.  We  should  have  come  in  time  for 
dinner  but  for  a  little  accident.  One  of  the  postillions 
was  thrown,  and  they  stopped  to  bleed  the  horse;  the 
man  was  as  nearly  killed  as  possible ;  the  wheel  went 
over  his  hand,  and  the  carriage  was  stopped  just  in 
time  to  spare  his  head.  It  made  me  nervous,  especially 
as  we  kept  backing  into  a  ditch  all  the  time  on  very 
frosty  grass.  .  .  . 

"  Moore  is  here,  and  very  amusing.  He  says  when 
first  Lady  Holland  heard  he  was  to  bring  out  '  Lalla 
Rookh,'  she  said,  '  What's  that  Irish  thing,  Larry 
Rourke,  that  you  are  to  bring  out?' 

"  Lady  Barrington  is  just  gone.  Our  present  party 
are  Lord  John  Russell,  Lord  Auckland,  and  some 
young  men  who  run  in  and  out,  but  I  cannot  dis- 
tinguish them  one  from  the  other  or  find  out  their 
names. 

"  Baby  bore  it  very  well  and  has  not  taken  cold.  I 
wish  for  a  line  to  tell  me  how  you  feel.  Nothing  can 
be  worse  for  everybody  than  this  weather,  soaking 
wet.  My  hands  shake  with  cold,  and  my  head  aches 
like  ten.' 

From  the  same  place  comes  the  following  letter  to 
Lady  Seymour : 

11  Dear  Georgie, 

"  This  place  is  supereminently  dull,  though  all 
the  people  are  charming  in  their  different  ways.  There 
is  a  stiffness,  a  punctuality,  a  shyness  about  every  one 
in  the  house  which  makes  me  think  of  the  famous 
fairy  tale  in  which  the  air  froze  the  words  before  they 


1833]  LETTERS  TO   LADY  SEYMOUR  57 

reached  the  sea  they  were  intended  for.  Lord  Auckland 
I  like  very  much  ;  he  has  a  very  grave,  gentle  manner, 
with  a  good  deal  of  dry  fun  about  him.  Emily  Eden 
is  undeniably  clever  and  pleasant.  .  .  .  We  have  had 
Tom  Moore,  and  still  preserve  a  very  clever  little  man, 
a  Mr.  Burn,  employed  by  Government  to  make  dis- 
coveries in  Asia  and  Africa  and  other  little  places.  He 
is  exceedingly  amusing,  without  being  the  least  byway 
of  giving  us  '  information.'  .  .  . 

"  About  coming  to  you,  dear,  which  I  wish  very 
much,  I  must  yet  await  many  decisions.  I  think  I 
might  come  for  a  few  days,  and  have  sent  on  your 
letter  to  Norton,  who  is  at  Guildford  'recording' 
[Mr.  Norton  held  for  a  great  many  years  the  office  of 
Recorder  for  Guildford].  My  great  puzzle  at  this 
moment  is  what  to  do  with  Charles  Sheridan,  who 
very  good-naturedly  offered  to  come  with  us  and  halve 
the  expenses  of  posting,  and  if  I  go  round  without 
him,  lo  !  where  shall  I  get  cash  ?  for  I  spent  so  much  at 
Worthing  that  I  really  am  quite  dependent  on  Norton 
now.  About  rooms,  you  need  not  mind  for  me.  Pearce 
can  sleep  on  the  ground  and  sing  herself  to  rest  with 
the  song,  '  My  lodging  is,'  etc.,  and  the  baby  either 
with  me  or  her.  .  .  .  Norton  cannot  leave  town  any 
more  now,  so  the  only  point  is  whether  he  will  give 
leave,  and  whether  dear  fidgety  uncle  will  make  some 
plan  for  himself  and  money,  money,  money  !  We  have 
our  own  carriage  and  must  post. 

"  I  shall  be  so  glad  to  introduce  my  small  William 
to  '  the  Saxon  bundle.'" 

[Lady  Seymour's  second  daughter  Ulrica  (fair  hair), 
afterwards  married  to  Lord  Henry  Thynne.] 


CHAPTER  VI 

TRIP  ABROAD — BRINSLEY's   MARRIAGE 

Nothing  is  more  noticeable  in  every  mention  of  the 
Sheridan  family  at  this  time  than  the  liking  they 
seemed  to  have  for  being  together.  The  married 
sisters  were  constantly  inviting  each  other  and  their 
brothers  and  mother  and  uncle  to  each  other's  houses, 
and  strangers  were  always  finding  that  wonderful 
group — "  Mrs.  Norton,  looking  as  if  she  were  made 
of  precious  stones,  diamonds,  emeralds,  rubies,  sap- 
phires ;  Lady  Seymour,  with  her  waxen,  round  white 
arms  and  eyes  streaming  with  soft  brilliancy,  like 
fountains  by  moonlight";  Mrs.  Sheridan,  more  beau- 
tiful than  anybody  but  her  daughters  ;  young  Brinsley, 
"  the  only  respectable  one  of  the  family,"  as  his  sister 
once  mischievously  remarked  to  Disraeli,  qualifying  it 
at  once  with  the  conclusion,  "and  that  is  because  he 
has  a  liver  complaint,"  which  fact  did  not  prevent  him 
from  being  six  feet  tall  and  as  handsome  and  agreeable 
as  any  of  his  brothers  and  sisters  ;  Lady  Graham,  their 
beautiful  aunt ;  Mrs.  Blackwood,  who  ought  to  have 
been  the  good  one,  according  to  Disraeli,  "  only  I 
am  not,"  as  she  assured  him  herself;  and  Frank 
and  Charles,  "younger  brothers  to  the  Apollo 
Belvedere." 

Out    of  this    love   for    each    other's    society    there 
arose  a  plan  for  a  family  trip  abroad  in  the  August 
of  1834;    the   Seymours,    Brinsley,   and   Mrs.   Black- 
58 


1834]  LETTER  TO   MURRAY  59 

wood,  then  living  with  her  mother  at  Hampton  Court 
in  the  absence  of  her  husband  on  his  frigate.  "  We 
shall  go,"  says  Lord  Seymour  in  a  letter  to  his 
father,  "  by  Calais  to  Ghent,  Antwerp,  Cologne,  and 
then  embark  on  the  Rhine,  and  when  we  are  tired  of 
German  scenery  we  shall  return  to  Brussels  and  see 
Leopold  in  all  his  glory.  We  shall  return  probably  in 
November." 

At  first  it  was  not  expected  that  the  Nortons 
were  to  be  included  in  this  expedition,  but  at  the 
last  moment  she  was  able  to  persuade  her  sulky 
husband  to  forgo  his  usual  shooting  season  in  Scot- 
land, and  join  the  others,  on  condition,  however,  that 
she,  not  he,  furnished  the  wherewithal  for  the  trip. 
No  very  easy  undertaking,  one  may  believe,  for  her 
long  illness  at  William's  birth  had  been  followed  by 
another  which  had  kept  her  confined  to  her  room  for 
some  time  during  the  following  winter.  At  the  same 
time,  the  abrupt  conclusion  of  her  engagement  with 
Bull,  proprietor  of  the  Court  Magazine, .had  put  an 
end  to  one  sure  source  of  income. 

She  tried  to  get  Murray  to  take  a  poem  she  had 
just  finished. 

"August  2,  1834. 

"  Sir, 

"  When  my  poem,  '  The  Undying  One,'  was  first 
written  it  was  offered  to  you  with  a  very  overrated 
idea  of  what  it  was  worth,  in  many  respects. 

"You  refused  to  publish  it,  and  favoured  me  at 
the  time  with  some  criticisms  on  the  style  and  subjects, 
which  I  have  always  remembered,  though  the  tempta- 
tion to  publish  it  at  the  time  was  very  strong,  and 
I  therefore  agreed  with  Mr.  Colburn,  who  made  your 
refusal  a  plea  for  fulfilling  only  one  half  of  his  original 
agreement.  I  have  now  another,  a  shorter  poem  by 
me,  called  '  The  Maiden's  Dream.'  I  have  taken 
pains  with  it,  and  have  avoided,  as  far  as  I  could,  all 
the  faults  imputed  to  my  first  attempt.  My  wish  is 
to  print  it  with  fugitive  pieces,  in  one  volume,  and 
sell  the  MS.  for  £100;  but  I  would  willingly  give  the 


60   TRIP  ABROAD— BRINSLEY'S   MARRIAGE  [chap,  vi 

MS.  without  the  last-named  condition,  if  you  would 
undertake  the  publication.  I  saw  that  you  had  printed 
Lady  E.  Wortley's  poems.  For  many  years  you  have 
been  the  encourager  and  supporter  of  poetical  talent, 
and  as  I  am  still  as  eager  (though,  I  hope,  more 
humble  than  when  I  set  out),  I  hope  you  do  not  mean 
to  make  me  the  exception  to  your  rule.  _ 

"  If  you  would  see  me  on  this  subject  to-morrow 
before  five,  and  would  name  the  hour  most  convenient, 
Mr.  Norton  would  accompany  me  to  Albemarle  Street. 
I  mention  to-morrow,  because  it  is  one  of  Mr.  Norton's 
very  few  leisure  days,  and  if  that  is  inconvenient  I 
shall  hope  to  be  able  to  fix  another. 

"  I  am,  Sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

"  C.  Norton." 

Murray's  answer  to  this  was  a  refusal.  Indeed  it 
was  several  years  before  this  particular  poem  appeared 
in  print.  But  she  at  last  found  a  publisher  so  obliging 
that  he  was  willing  to  contract  with  her  for  a  story 
not  yet  written,  Messrs.  Saunders  &  Otley,  who 
afterwards  brought  out  her  first  long  novel  "  The 
Wife."  With  this  in  prospect,  she  set  off  with  her 
husband  and  joined  the  others  at  Antwerp.  One  of 
the  prettiest  of  her  later  poems  is  written  in  descrip- 
tion of  this  journey : 

Ehrenbreitstein 

"  Oh,  mighty  fortress,  lovely  Rhine  ! 
How  well  those  scenes  my  heart  remembers, 
Though  since  I  last  beheld  them,  Time 
Hath  changed  my  life  with  ten  Septembers. 
But  that  September  who  shall  tell 
The  joy,  the  triumph,  the  delight 
Of  setting  off  for  foreign  lands, 
And  travelling  on,  by  day  and  night  ? 
Who  shall  describe  how  pleased  we  were, 
The  large  home  party,  setting  forth 
To  bask  in  sunshine  carelessly, 
And  seek  adventures  south  and  north  ? 
The  journal-books  and  sketch-books,  kept 
Under  such  sacred  lock  and  key 
(Except — and  that  was  every  day — 
When  careless  owners  left  them  free), 


1834]  EHRENBREITSTEIN  61 

Which  woke  within  our  busy  minds 
For  art  and  memories  such  a  rage. 
We  could  not  pass  the  first  hotel 
Without  the  subject  for  a  page. 

"  And  then,  in  spite  of  rattling  wheels, 
The  long,  long  letters  written  home 
To  tell  of  distant  Germany, 
To  tell  how  glad  we  were  to  roam  : 
How  all  along  the  vineyard  grounds 
The  stunted  vines  like  currants  grew, 
Not  like  those  married  to  the  elms 
Which  our  misleading  fancy  drew. 
How  little  Nonnenwerth  was  like 
An  emerald  in  a  silver  setting ; 
How  stupid  one  among  us  was, 
The  passports  and  the  trunks  forgetting  ; 
How  all  old  legends  were  confirmed, 
Because  we  saw  with  our  own  eyes, 
Above  the  clear  transparent  wave, 
The  towers  of  Rolandseck  arise  : 
And  stamped  on  memory  by  the  scene, 
All  history's  facts  appeared  to  live, 
Presenting  the  mysterious  charm 
Which  'picture  books'  to  children  give. 

"  The  merry  laughs,  the  active  steps, 
The  eager  hearts,  the  curious  eyes, 
The  vine-clad  hills,  the  crumbling  towers, 
The  deep  blue  wave,  the  sunny  skies, 
The  Grand  Dukes,  Archdukes,  blandly  kind  ; 
The  peasants,  beautiful  and  poor  ; 
The  wonderful  adventures  (sent 
To  every  traveller  on  his  tour)  ; 
The  wild,  delightful,  rambling  days, 
Whose  image,  still  surviving,  seems 
That  they  alone  of  life  seem  real, 
And  all  the  rest  but  fading  dreams. 

"  Oh  river,  at  this  present  time 
How  like  thy  unreturning  tide, 
Bright,  fleeting,  wonderfully  fair, 
Those  vanished  days  before  me  glide. 
The  journal  now  is  locked  away, 
The  sketch-book  opened  with  a  sigh, 
And  pictures  of  the  lovely  Rhine 
Are  gazed  at  with  a  saddened  eye  : 


62    TRIP  ABROAD— BRINSLEY'S   MARRIAGE  [chap,  vi 

Because  so  much  that  then  was  joy, 
Succeeding  years  have  turned  to  pain  ; 
So  much  can  only  grieve  the  heart, 
That  made  it  beat  with  pleasure  then." 

But  her  enjoyment  of  the  expedition  soon  received 
a  disastrous  check.  As  might  have  been  expected, 
George  Norton  hated  travel  abroad.  His  relations 
with  his  brothers  and  sisters-in-law  may  at  the  moment 
have  been  friendly,  but  they  hardly  could  have  con- 
tinued very  cordial  after  the  open  family  discussion 
which  had  taken  place  at  his  last  outbreak  against  his 
wife.  At  his  best  moments  he  would  have  been  of 
too  alien  a  temper  to  add  much  to  the  enjoyment  of 
the  travelling  party.  No  doubt  they  were  all  relieved 
when  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  he  fell  ill  of  a  lameness  that 
kept  him  behind  while  they  went  on  without  him  ; 
except,  of  course,  his  wife,  who  had  to  swallow  her 
disappointment  as  best  she  might  and  devote  herself 
to  the  obvious  duty  of  nursing  him  back  to  health. 
She  was  too  kind  really,  too  ready  for  any  emergency 
of  self-sacrifice  to  dream  of  doing  anything  else.  But 
there  was  another  side  to  her  nature,  the  necessary 
complement  perhaps  of  the  extravagant  generosity  of 
her  first  impulses.  She  could  not  go  on  submitting  to 
selfish  tyranny  day  by  day  without  a  crumb  of  praise 
or  appreciation.  George  Norton,  however,  was  not 
the  sort  of  man  to  think  of  others  in  his  own  dis- 
comfort. He  could  speak  no  foreign  language,  so  he 
refused  to  be  waited  upon  by  any  one  but  herself. 
He  seldom  consented  to  be  left  alone ;  and  as  day  after 
day  passed  for  her,  shut  up  in  a  dreary  hotel  room 
with  no  society  but  that  of  a  stupid,  ill-tempered 
husband,  she  no  doubt  had  plenty  of  time  to  ask 
herself  whether,  for  this  particular  pleasure,  she  had 
not  paid  too  much.  Her  melancholy  letters  to  her 
family  brought  Brinsley  back  to  bear  her  company, 
and  soon  they  all  joined  forces  again.  But  Mr.  Norton's 
illness  had  not  improved  him  as  a  travelling  com- 
panion, though  his  wife  was  of  course  the  chief  victim 


1834]  QUARREL  WITH   HER   HUSBAND  63 

of  his  ill-temper,  till  at  the  end  of  a  long  day's  journey, 
during  which  he  had  persisted  in  filling  their  little 
closed  travelling  carriage  with  the  smoke  of  his 
"  hookah,"  in  spite  of  her  reiterated  entreaty  that  it 
was  making  her  ill,  her  thin-worn  endurance  gave 
way,  and  she  snatched  at  the  pipe  and  flung  the 
mouthpiece  out  of  the  window.  The  carriage  was 
then  slowly  ascending  a  hill.  He  got  out  and  re- 
covered the  missing  part  of  the  pipe,  and  then  came 
back  to  repay  her  for  her  loss  of  temper  by  a  savage 
onslaught,  which  left  the  marks  of  his  fingers  on  her 
throat,  and  from  which  she  with  difficulty  escaped  by 
slipping  out  of  the  half-closed  door  of  the  carriage  to 
run  after  the  others  and  entreat  some  one  of  her  family 
to  travel  with  them  and  protect  her  from  further 
ill-usage — for  all  which  she  forgave  him  more  quickly 
than  her  family  did.  From  this  time  forth  all  that 
was  friendly  in  their  relations  with  their  brother-in- 
law  ceased,  and  never  was  renewed  again.  They 
took  her  on  with  them  to  Paris,  where  she  wrote 
somewhat  later,  in  answer  to  a  complaining  and 
repentant  letter  from  him  : 

"  Dear  George, 

"  You  can't  think  how  I  reproach  myself  at  your 
being  ill;  it  makes  me  quite  unhappy;  but  it  shall 
never  happen  again  ;  your  remorseful  wife  promises 
you  faithfully.  You  are  a  good,  kind  husband  in  the 
long  run,  and  don't  believe  me  when  I  say  harsh 
things  to  you,  waking  or  sleeping ;  balance  my  words 
that  night  against  the  day  you  woke  me.  Glad  to 
make  friends  and  happy  to  see  you  at  Paris,  and 
forgive  me  !  Come  early  on  Wednesday.  God  bless 
you,  dear.     Mind  you  write. 

"  Ever  your  affectionate 

"  Car." 

The  miracle  of  such  a  tone  to  a  husband  from  whom 
she  had  received  such  brutal  treatment — a  husband 
against  whom  she  had  often  expressed  the  bitterest 
resentment  and  contempt — is  perhaps    less  amazing 


64    TRIP  ABROAD— BRINSLEY'S   MARRIAGE  [chap,  vi 

than  the  miracle  it  would  have  been  for  a  woman  like 
her,  deeply  affectionate  and  generous-hearted,  to  have 
gone  on  living  with  him  year  after  year  in  the  intimate 
relation  of  his  wife,  the  mother  of  his  children,  the 
daily  companion  and  sharer  of  his  most  serious 
interests  and  anxieties,  without  some  moments  of 
tenderness,  of  close  rapprochement,  without,  it  may 
be,  some  moments  of  genuine  passion. 

The  appearance  of  the  three  beautiful  Sheridans 
made  quite  a  furore  in  the  French  capital. 

Henry  Greville,  a  brother  of  Charles,  in  a  description 
of  the  citizen  King  Louis  Philippe  and  his  Court, 
concludes  : 

"  November  27. — In  the  evening  a  good  many  English 
came  to  be  presented  at  the  Tuileries— among  them 
the  three  Sheridan  sisters  :  when  they  came  in  the 
King  exclaimed,  '  What  a  batch  of  them  ! ' " 

Mr.  Greville  went  to  a  dinner  at  the  Granvilles'  a 
few  days  later  and  sat  next  Mrs.  Norton,  who  was 
very  amusing.  "  Her  beauty  and  that  of  Lady  Sey- 
mour make  a  prodigious  sensation  here,"  he  remarks 
in  his  journal  under  that  date. 

Lady  Granville  has  her  usual  little  slap  to  administer 
in  a  letter  to  her  sister,  Lady  Carlisle.  "  I  will  tell 
you  how  Norton  behaves  in  my  next.  The  French 
are  sorry  Blackwood  goes  to  the  Opera  in  a  skull- 
cap." 

Lord  Brougham  was  also  in  Paris — out  of  office, 
like  all  the  other  Whigs — and  full  of  the  story  of 
the  King's  surprising  dismissal  of  Lord  Melbourne 
(who  had  been  Prime  Minister  since  Lord  Grey's 
resignation  in  the  spring  of  1834);  full  of  everything 
that  had  been  going  on  in  London  during  the  autumn, 
from  the  burning  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament  to 
the  Queen's  part  in  the  dismissal  of  the  hated  Whig 
Ministers ;  "  but  writing  as  much  as  he  talked,  a 
sublime  quack,"  remarked  Lady  Granville,  as  she  tells 
her  sister  of  his  devotion  to  Mrs.  Norton.     Not  to  her 


1835]  CHRISTMAS   AT   HAMPTON   COURT  65 

alone,  however.  "  He  sits  with  Lady  Clanricarde, — 
the  Princess  Belgioso, — Mrs.  Norton, — two  hours  at  a 
time  in  the  morning." 

Lord  Lyndhurst  had  succeeded  Lord  Brougham  as 
Lord  Chancellor  of  the  new  Peel  Ministry,  sometimes 
called  the  100  days,  as  it  held  power  only  till  the 
following  April.  Lord  Lyndhurst  is  interesting  to 
Americans  as  having  been  born  in  Boston  while  it 
was  still  a  colony  of  Great  Britain,  in  which  town 
descendants  of  the  Copley  family  still  live.  He  had 
begun  life  as  a  Whig,  and  his  enemies  accused  him 
of  turning  Tory,  less  from  principle  than  for  what 
it  would  bring  him.  But,  Whig  or  Tory,  he  was 
always  a  warm  friend  of  the  Sheridan  sisters,  especially 
Caroline ;  and  more  was  to  be  hoped  from  him  in  the 
way  of  her  husband's  advancement  than  ever  could  be 
obtained  from  Brougham,  or  even  Lord  Melbourne, 
whose  initial  act  of  benevolence  to  Mr.  Norton 
threatened  to  be  his  last. 

All  the  family  spent  Christmas  with  Mrs.  Sheridan 
at  Hampton  Court  after  the  various  separations  which 
had  made  the  deserted  nursery  seem  such  a  mournful 
place  to  Georgie  Sheridan.  Even  Frank  was  back 
from  Ireland  with  his  chief,  Lord  Mulgrave,  out  of 
office  for  the  moment  with  the  rest  of  Melbourne's 
Government.  A  letter  from  Mrs.  Norton  to  her 
husband,  still  in  the  spirit  of  their  last  reconciliation, 
gives  an  account  of  her  plans  and  interests  in  the 
coming  year. 

"January  1. 

"  My  dearest  Geordie, 

"  I  wish  there  were  franks,  but  there  are  none 
now  to  make  a  stupid  letter  tolerable.  I  am  very 
much  vexed  about  poor  Charlie,  who  has  been  in  his 
bed  these  three  days  ;  and  Fincham  (the  apothecary) 
says  he  requires  the  greatest  care.  I  have  made  tea 
for  him  these  two  past  evenings ;  he  is  quite  low  and 
dull,  and  Frank  does  not  seem  to  think  much  about 
him.  To-day  is  the  1st  of  January,  so  before  I  go 
further  let   me  wish   you  a    Happy  New  Year,  and 

9 


66    TRIP   ABROAD— BRINSLEY'S   MARRIAGE  [chap,  vi 

many  of  them,  dear  Geordie,  in  quietness  and  comfort 
at  home,  and  what  prosperity  may  chance  abroad.     1 
have   sat  the  whole   day  with    Heath  [the  publisher 
of    the    Keepsake    and    English    Annual] ;    Reynolds 
[editor  for  the  English  Annual  for  1836];   also  Lord 
Mulgrave.     I  have  taken  the  editorship  of  the  Keep- 
sake, and   Mr.  Heath  informed  me  of  what   he  was 
pleased    to   call  a  horrible   attempt  on    the  part  of 
Mr.    Bull,  Holies  Street,  and   an   actionable   offence. 
This  was  that  it  seems  Bull  has  published  and  cun- 
ningly sent   to  Paris,  an   annual   called   the  English 
Annual,  and  on  which  is  impudently  printed  '  Edited 
by   Mrs.    Norton.'     I    have  sent  for    the    book,   and 
expressed  the   utmost  indignation  and  astonishment. 
I  shall  give  you  an  amusing  account  of  this  interview 
when   we   meet.     Nothing   is  droll  upon  paper,  and 
one  can't  write  down  the  tone  of  voice  in  which  a 
thing  was  said.     Heath  seemed  struck  with  my  per- 
sonal charms,  and  requested  me  to  sit  to  Ross  for 
next  year's  '  Book  of  Beauty,'  which  I  agreed  to  do. 
Lord   Melbourne   has   lent   me   a  curious   book  (Dr. 
Lardner's  Letters),  in  which  the  Doctor  proves  that 
Mary  Magdalen  was  the  most  virtuous  of  her  sex.     I 
have  not  yet  looked  at  it,  as  I  do  not  wish  to  lose 
the  post  to  you,  but  am  very  curious  to  see  it  proved. 
I  was  showing  the  opera-glass  you  gave  me  to  the 
boys,  and  Brinny  said,  '  What  do  you  see  ? '     'I  see 
your  dear  little  dirty  face,'  quoth  I ;  I  then  handed 
it  to  him,  and  said,  '  What  do  you  see  ?  '     'I  see  your 
dear  big  dirty  face,'  said   he.     Wasn't  it   quick  and 
funny?    The  other   laughed  amazingly  at   this  filial 
impertinence.      Spencer's   good    things    I    must    not 
omit.     We  were  sitting  with  Charlie,  and  he  was  dull. 
1  Now,'  says  he,  '  let's  resign.'     '  What  do  you  mean  ?' 
said   I.      •  People  says  resign  when   they  goes  out,' 
quoth  he.     So  much  for  living  with  Ministers  !     With 
these   anecdotes   I  conclude  my  shabby  little  letter, 
hoping  to  hear  from  you  that  any  little  unpleasantness 
brought  you  by  Grantley  when  you  thought  you  were 
doing  for  the  best  is  over  and  explained  away.     The 
boys  send  their  love.     Brin  says  gravely,  '  Have  you 
told  Papa  about  your  poor  little  sick  brother  ? ' 
"  Yours  ever  affectionately, 

"C. 


1835]  LETTER  TO   LADY  SEYMOUR  67 

"  Mamma  begs  you  to  drink  melted  gum  from 
Arabia  in  all  your  drinks.     Take  care,  dear  Geordie." 

She  tells  another  funny  story  about  this  same  little 
Brinsley,  in  a  letter  to  her  sister  written  later  in  the 
year  from  Richmond,  where  she  had  been  "  taking  a 
tiny  frisk  of  three  days  at  the  Star  and  Garter." 

"  I  took  Brinsley  to  Richmond,  and  the  first  day  he 
walked  out  he  saw  a  fat  sow  eating  cabbage.  He 
struck  with  a  stick  against  the  sty  and  called  out,  '  You 
fat  pig,  you  is  eating  too  much.'  He  continued  his 
walk  and  returning  by  the  sty,  peeped  in.  The  sow 
was  asleep,  but  Brin  thought  she  was  dead,  and  shook 
his  head  mournfully.  'The  great  pig  is  dead,  poor 
sing  !  He  is  dead.  I  knowed  he  was  eating  too  much. 
I  said :  '  You  is  eating  too  much,'  and  he  wouldn't  be 
dood.     Oh,  the  poor  sing ! " 

The  next  event  of  importance  among  the  Sheridan 
brothers  and  sisters  was  the  runaway  marriage  of 
Brinsley  Sheridan  and  Miss  Marcia  Grant,  only 
daughter  of  an  old  Waterloo  officer,  Sir  Colquhoun 
Grant,  an  heiress  in  her  own  right.  The  whole  his- 
tory of  the  elopement  was  like  a  leaf  from  the  great 
Sheridan's  personal  history,  or  a  page  from  one  of  his 
comedies.  Whether  rightly  or  wrongly  however  the 
praise  or  blame  of  the  achievement  fell  less  on  the 
eloping  bridegroom  than  on  his  three  sisters. 

"  Were  the  laws  of  witchcraft  still  enforced  in 
England,  these  beautiful  sisters  would  stand  a  chance 
of  being  burned  at  the  stake.  To  these  three  sisters, 
as  to  the  three  fates,  the  world  of  fashion  attribute  the 
working  of  that  mysterious  spell  which  caused  a 
young  heiress  to  marry  according  to  her  own  inclina- 
tions." 

Such  was  the  notice  that  appeared  in  one  of  the 
fashionable  journals  on  May  23,  1835,  by  which  time 
the  news  of  this  runaway  marriage  had  become  public 
property.     Certainly,  Mrs.  Norton  and  Lady  Seymour 


68  TRIP   ABROAD— BRINSLEY'S   MARRIAGE  [chap,  vi 

had  to  bear  more  of  the  serious  consequences  to  this 
tragi-comic  affair  than  either  of  the  principal  actors  in 
it.  Sir  Colquhoun  Grant  was  at  Poole  as  candidate 
for  a  contested  election  on  the  day  his  daughter  ran 
off  to  Scotland  with  Mr.  Sheridan.  But  he  had  left 
his  kinsman,  Sir  Robert  MacFarlane,  to  look  after  his 
daughter  in  his  absence,  and  as  soon  as  this  gentleman 
heard  of  the  young  lady's  disappearance,  he  hastened 
to  Spring  Gardens  and  demanded  to  see  Lady  Seymour 
— refusing  to  be  denied ;  and  at  last  forced  his  way 
upstairs,  where  he  found  further  proof  of  the  justice 
of  his  suspicions,  in  the  group  assembled  in  the 
drawing-room — Mrs.  Sheridan,  Mrs.  Blackwood,  and 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Norton,  besides  Lady  Seymour  and  her 
husband,  "  In  whose  presence,"  to  quote  from  the 
challenge  which  Sir  Colquhoun  Grant  afterwards  sent 
Lord  Seymour,  "  Sir  R.  MacFarlane  required  of  your 
wife  intelligence  of  my  daughter's  flight.  This  in  your 
hearing  Lady  Seymour  refused,  and  you  did  not  insist 
on  her  answering." 

In  the  course  of  the  next  three  weeks  Sir  Colquhoun 
Grant  had  challenged  and  fought  a  duel  with  Lord 
Seymour.  He  had  also  informed  George  Norton  that 
only  his  position  of  magistrate  saved  him,  too,  from 
being  called  on  for  the  same  satisfaction  for  his  own 
and  his  wife's  connection  with  the  matter.  Mr. 
Norton  hastened  in  a  long  and  somewhat  laboured 
reply  to  explain  his  presence  in  Spring  Gardens  on  the 
night  of  the  elopement,  as  in  no  way  connected  with, 
indeed,  in  entire  ignorance  of,  his  brother-in-law's  in- 
tentions. He  had,  in  fact,  dropped  in  after  dinner  to 
get  his  wife,  who  was  going  on  with  him  to  Lansdowne 
House,  and  had  been  informed  of  what  had  taken  place, 
only  a  few  moments  before  the  arrival  of  Sir  Robert 
himself.  But  Sir  Colquhoun  continued  unappeased, 
and  for  a  little  while  it  seemed  possible  that  the  whole 
Sheridan  connection  would  have  to  stand  a  prosecution 
for  conspiracy.  "  Should  this  succeed,"  remarked  a 
flippant    society    journal,    "  all    the    members    of    a 


1 835]    CHARACTER   OF  BRINSLEY  SHERIDAN         69 

talented  family  must  compose  their  minds  and  their 
poetry  in  prison  for  a  year  or  more." 

Brinsley  had  to  cut  short  his  honeymoon  at  Netherby, 
lent  by  Sir  James  Graham  for  the  occasion,  and  appear 
in  London  in  answer  to  a  summons  of  Chancery  on  a 
charge  of  abduction,  brought  against  him  by  his  irate 
father-in-law.  But,  to  quote  again  from  the  Court 
Journal : 

"  In  all  the  attempts  made  to  cast  blame  on  the  parti- 
cipants no  word  has  been  spoken  against  the  character 
and  conduct  of  young  Sheridan.  It  is  in  evidence  that 
he  is  gifted  with  singular  personal  advantages,  rich  in 
the  endowments  of  a  cultivated  mind  and  brilliant 
talents,  and  that  he  is  well,  if  not  nobly  connected,  his 
mother  being  own  cousin  to  the  Marchioness  of 
Londonderry.     Fortune  was  all  he  wanted." 

No  runaway  match  indeed  ever  turned  out  better. 
No  couple  were  ever  more  truly  attached  to  each 
other,  or  lived  afterwards  in  closer  union.  And  even 
Sir  Colquhoun  did  not  long  delay  his  reconciliation 
with  his  son-in-law,  and  when  he  died,  the  following 
December,  his  Dorsetshire  estate  and  much  of  his 
other  property  descended  to  his  daughter,  besides  the 
large  fortune  which  she  already  possessed.  It  may  be 
added  that  Brinsley  Sheridan  had  no  debts  to  cause 
any  inroads  on  that  fortune. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   WIFE — MRS.    NORTON    LEAVES   HER   HUSBAND 

Mrs.  Norton's  first  long  novel  made  its  appearance 
the  same  spring  as  her  brother's  elopement.  Her  own 
and  her  publishers'  expectations  for  it  may  be  seen  in 
the  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  her  sister  : 

"  My  book  comes  out  on  Wednesday,  and  I  will  have 
it  sent  down  to  you  immediately.  Nothing  can  be 
more  gentlemanlike  than  they  (the  publishers)  have 
been  to  me.  I  had,  you  know,  £100  conditional  on  a 
second  edition  ;  well,  they  said  they  should  be  loth 
to  pay  me  so  bad  a  compliment  as  to  leave  what 
implied  a  doubt  of  my  success  and  their  own,  and 
gave  me  the  whole  ^300  instead  of  £200,  and  I  am  much 
pleased.  In  spite  of  my  oaths  against  writing,  when 
they  offered  me  ^500  clear  and  unconditional  on 
delivery  of  the  MS.  of  'Erbenfeldt'  next  January, 
I  became  tempted.  '  In  short,  I  fell,'  as  they  say  in  the 
1  Man  of  Honour,'  and  I  have  signed  an  agreement  to 
do  so.  I  read  '  Erbenfeldt '  again,  and  am  vexed  to  see 
how  much  better  I  wrote  then,  when  I  had  not  scribbled 
so  much,  or  so  much  against  the  grain.  I  find  a  volume 
and  a  half  (nearly)  is  already  done,  and  of  course  I  am 
glad  to  know  that  the  enforced  labour  which  you  and 
Seymour  put  me  to  before  my  Bradley  meals  is  not  to 
be  wasted  •  entirely.' " 

But  her  own  and  her  publishers'  expectations  for 
her  future  in  this  new  field  of  literary  work  were 
doomed  to  disappointment.     Her  "  Erbenfeldt "  never 

70 


1835]        LETTER  FROM   LORD   MELBOURNE  71 

saw  the  light,  was  probably  still  unfinished  when  its 
author  went  down  into  that  sea  of  misfortune  which, 
for  a  time  at  least,  overwhelmed  so  many  of  her  hopes 
and  ambitions.  But  even  if  the  MS.  had  been  delivered 
according  to  contract  on  the  first  of  the  following 
January,  it  is  not  likely  that  her  publishers  would 
have  wished  to  produce  it  after  the  comparative 
failure  of  her  first  novel,  of  which  I  can  find  no  record 
except  a  few  very  sharp  reviews  and  one  small  edition, 
long  out  of  print. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  its  lack  of  commercial  success,  this 
novel  showed  a  decided  advance,  from  a  literary  point 
of  view,  upon  the  short  stories  and  sketches  hitherto 
signed  with  her  name. 

"  The  Wife  and  Woman's  Reward "  is  not  one 
story,  but  two  quite  separate  tales,  published  together 
in  the  usual  three  volumes  of  fiction.  The  first  is  an 
account  of  the  extraordinary  devotion  of  an  elder 
sister  for  a  brother,  left  to  her  care  by  a  dying  father. 
Lord  Melbourne's  criticism  in  one  of  his  letters  to 
the  author  is  interesting  in  his  recognition  of  some 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  unpleasant  brother  as 
borrowed  from  George  Norton. 

"  I  have  been  reading  your  book,  and  have  finished 
the  second  volume.     It's  full  of  most  excellent  things. 

Lionel  is  too  d d  a  beast,  and  Mary  makes  a  great 

deal  too  much  sacrifice  for  him,  but  it  is  not  unnatural. 
Many  people  have  acted  as  amiably,  as  romantically, 
and  as  foolishly.  I  think,  in  order  to  take  advantage  of 
what  you  have  observed  in  other  people's  characters 
you  have  put  into  his  what  did  not  belong  to  it.  For 
instance,  his  being  so  disagreeable  upon  the  journey 
— calculating  the  currency,  and  admiring  nothing 
fine  and  beautiful  either  in  nature  or  art — is  what 
has  struck  you  in  others  and  you  have  grafted  it 
on  him." 

The  following  is  one  of  the  passages  referred  to  : 

11  He  was  continually  occupying  himself  with  trivial 
anxieties    which    for    the    time   assumed   an   intense 


72  THE   WIFE  [chap,  vii 

importance.  Restless  and  wretched,  he  fidgeted 
about  all  the  little  events  and  minor  details  of  their 
journey.  He  spent  the  first  two  stages  of  every  day's 
journey  in  counting  over  again  the  bills  which  had 
already  been  paid,  and  consulting  different  estimates 
of  the  different  rates  of  the  currency  in  the  countries 
they  were  to  pass  through.  He  was  always  looking- 
for  a  lost  book,  or  a  mislaid  paper  knife,  or  an  un- 
discoverable  travelling  cap  :  always  wondering  whether 
the  road  they  were  going  was  really  and  actually  the 
best  road  to  the  place  of  their  destination,  and  calcu- 
lating what  hour  they  should  arrive  ;  always  abusing 
the  last  hotel-keeper  and  swearing  against  the  bore  of 
a  long  journey." 

But  though  Mrs.  Norton  here  stands  convicted  of 
using  her  nearest  and  those  who  ought  to  have  been 
her  dearest  for  literary  copy,  she  was  no  more  sparing 
of  herself  in  the  same  cause.  The  following  little 
speech  which  an  old  lady  who  lives  in  Spring  Gardens 
addressed  to  Mary,  the  heroine  of  the  "  Woman's 
Reward,"  might  easily  be  addressed  to  her  own 
experience : 

"  I  do  not  think,  my  dear,  that  I  am  so  selfish  as  to 
wish  you  had  drollery.  It  is  so  rare,  drollery,  as  you 
term  it,  or  even  wit  is  seemly  or  graceful  in  a  young 
woman ;  the  proneness  to  satire,  the  temptation  to 
caricature  make  it  at  best  a  dangerous  talent ;  a 
thousand  sayings  are  attributed  to  you  which  you 
know  nothing  of,  and  the  reputation  of  being  witty 
converts  slight  acquaintances  into  bitter  enemies. 
Indeed,  I  think  the  less  brilliant  a  woman's  qualities 
and  talents  are,  the  better  for  her  peace  of  mind  and 
respectability  through  life. 

"  Consider  how  easy  it  is  to  create  a  laugh.  There 
is  scarcely  any  subject,  however  serious,  that  may  not 
be  so  treated  as  to  be  made  ridiculous ;  coarseness  of 
expression  and  licence  of  thought,  abuse  of  one's 
neighbour,  or  immoral  boasting,  has  been  mistaken 
for  wit.  And  those  who  laugh  do  not  always 
approve. 

"  There  is  no  quality  which  has  so  little  the  power 
of  converting  its  admirers  into  friends. 


1835]  THE   WIFE  73 

"  I  recollect  when  I  was  young,  I  was  remarked  for 
this  very  talent — a  talent  the  less  to  be  envied,  since 
it  required  merely  high  spirits,  a  desire  to  shine,  and  a 
moderate  share  of  intellect  in  its  possessor.  My 
sayings  were  quoted ;  I  was  thought  amusing  ;  I  made 
repartees  to  my  enemies,  and  narrated  stories  for  my 
friends ;  and  I  assure  you  that  many  an  hour  of  self- 
reproach  followed  those  momentary  triumphs,  that  I 
would  have  given  worlds  to  recall  some  stinging 
reproach  or  light  observation,  and  would  rather  have 
been  reckoned  dull  than  had  that  reputation  (which  I 
had)  of  being  capable  of  giving  up  my  dearest  friend 
for  the  sake  of  a  bon  mot'' 

The  second  of  these  two  tales  has  an  extraordinary 
resemblance  to  Mrs.  Norton's  own  early  life.  A  young 
and  beautiful  woman  married  to  a  man  she  did  not 
love  ;  a  bride  in  London  society,  where  the  interest  she 
excited  "  was  not  sympathy  or  kindness,  or  even 
curiosity,  but  a  hard,  unindulgent  speculation  as  to 
what  were  her  motives  in  the  match,  and  what  will  be 
her  conduct  in  the  position  in  which  she  has  placed 
herself."  It  is  impossible  for  a  woman  having  so 
lately  undergone  an  almost  parallel  experience  not 
to  have  drawn  from  her  own  heart  the  following 
description  of  the  young  wife's  restless  unhappiness 
during  the  first  years  of  her  married  life  : 

11  Many  and  many  a  day  after  that  one  which  sealed 
her  fate,  it  seemed  to  be  a  dream  that  she  was  indeed 
a  wife,  and  she  would  start  from  her  uneasy  sleep 
with  a  vague  feeling  of  remorse  and  regret,  or  that 
still  vaguer  sensation  which  comes  upon  us  after 
great  sorrow — the  consciousness  that  we  have  some 
cause  for  grief,  without  the  perfect  memory  of  what 
it  is.  Then,  as  gradually  the  whole  truth  became 
present  to  her  mind,  she  would  close  her  eyes  and 
strive  to  sleep  again,  to  dream  that  she  was  free — 
sometimes  the  effort  would  succeed,  wild,  wandering 
visions  would  give  her  back  all  the  bartered  liberty  of 
her  youth  ;  the  days  would  return  when  she  had  still 
the  power  to  choose,  and  to  refuse;  and  she  started 
and  shrank  to  find  how  bitter  was  the  waking  which 

10 


74  THE  WIFE  [chap,  vii 

brought  back  the  truth  to  her  heart.  But  oftener, 
far,  far  oftener,  sleep  refused  its  peace  to  her  weary 
lids,  and  she  remained,  her  eyes  opened  wide  upon 
the  cold  blank  darkness,  reflecting  on  the  change  that 
had  taken  place  in  her  destiny,  while  a  strange, 
startled  feeling  chilled  her  heart ;  and  bitter  was  the 
agony  with  which,  hiding  her  weeping  face  in  her 
pillow,  she  murmured,  '  I  have  sinned  and  deeply  am 
I  punished.  Dreams  comfort  me  in  vain,  I  wake,  I 
live,  and  I  am  bound  for  ever,  and  ever,  and  ever.'  It 
was  a  heavy  lead-like  feeling." 

The  story  still  continues  its  self-revealing  tone  as  it 
recounts  Susan  Dalrymple's  social  successes  : 

"  Princes  praised,  poets  flattered,  and  painters 
sketched  her;  and  her  heart,  restless  and  dissatisfied, 
gave  itself  up  to  the  pleasures  of  the  world,  feeding- 
its  quenchless  thirst  at  that  fountain  which  never  yet 
calmed  or  comforted— the  glittering  spring  of  vanity." 

There  is  an  account  of  her  return  after  one  of  these 
evenings  of  social  triumph,  the  deep  depression  that 
overtakes  her  as  she  sits  afterwards  alone  in  her 
room,  gazing  into  her  mirror — 

"  On  her  face  reflected  in  that  glass,  and  while  she 
felt  her  possession  of  beauty  such  as  is  rarely 
bestowed,  she  also  felt  that  it  had  never  been  to  her 
other  than  a  curse  and  a  temptation  ;  with  attraction 
enough,  indeed,  to  burden  her  heart  with  bad  men's 
sighs,  but  no  power  over  those  she  wished  to  charm, 
like  a  demon  gift  which,  with  all  the  promise  and 
appearance  of  gain,  is  somehow  unaccountably  made 
to  turn  to  the  disadvantage  and  ruin  of  its  possessor. 
How  often  in  the  real  world  does  this  mockery  of 
success  attend  us  ?  How  often  are  we  envied  for  the 
sake  of  what,  after  all,  is  but  a  demon  gift  i  " 

Glenalton,  the  husband  in  the  story,  has  very  little 
resemblance  to  George  Norton,  except  in  his  jealousy 
and  in  sudden  accidental  touches  here  and  there  in 
response    to    the    evident   likeness    between   George 


1835]  MISS  VAUGHAN  75 

Norton's  own  wife  and  Susan  Dalrymple.  A  cousin 
of  the  husband's  comes  at  last  to  live  with  them,  an 
older  woman,  who  soon  obtains  an  amazing  influence 
over  both  husband  and  wife,  until  Susan  suddenly 
finds  that  her  husband's  feelings  are  being  alienated 
from  her,  alienated  just  as  she  herself  has  begun  to 
love  him.  It  is  at  this  point  that  all  resemblance 
between  the  story  and  real  life  abruptly  ceases.  The 
heroine  accidentally  discovers  the  machinations  of  this 
false  friend,  and  makes  them  useless  by  a  frank  appeal 
to  her  husband's  real  affection  for  her,  which  has 
persisted  through  all  misunderstandings.  "  It  would 
be  needless  to  describe  the  scene  of  reconciliation 
between  those  divided  hearts.  Suffice  it  that  peace 
and  happiness  were  restored,  and  the  trials  to  which 
Susan  Dalrymple's  rashness  and  imprudence  had 
subjected  her  were  ended  for  ever."  When  these 
words  were  written  Mrs.  Norton's  own  future  still  lay 
upon  the  knees  of  the  gods.  Her  work  is  often 
blamed  as  too  sad — even  for  truth.  A  comparison 
between  this  first  attempt  at  sustained  fiction  and  her 
next  novel,  written  nearly  twenty  years  later,  makes 
one  feel  that  it  was  her  own  true  experience  that  made 
her  later  fiction  so  sad. 

Who  was  the  prototype  of  the  false  woman  friend 
who  worked  such  harm  to  Susan  in  the  story  of  "The 
Wife,"  or  if  there  was  any  prototype  at  all,  it  is  im- 
possible of  course  at  this  late  date  to  tell.  There  was, 
however,  this  type,  slender,  subtle,  designing,  running- 
through  more  than  one  of  Mrs.  Norton's  later  stories, 
till  it  reaches  perfection  in  Alice,  the  half-sister  of 
Sir  Douglas,  in  the  novel  of  that  name.  And  there 
was  a  woman  who  might  have  given  some  material 
for  it,  older  than  Caroline,  older  probably  than  her 
husband — a  kinswoman  of  his  whom  he  mentions 
jokingly  to  his  wife  as  early  as  1834  as  having  shown 
a  flattering  preference  for  himself.  This  lady  had 
estates  in  Yorkshire,  but  she  lived  in  London,  at  No.  1, 
Lower  Berkeley  Street,  Manchester  Square.     Her  age 


76  THE  WIFE  [chap,  vii 

and  relationship  with  Mr.  Norton  permitted  her  to  go 
and  come  in  his  house,  and  to  interfere  with  her  advice 
between  him  and  his  wife,  who  may  first  have  been 
indifferent,  even  friendly,  but  who  soon  came  to  dread 
and  resent  this  connection  with  her  husband  as 
dangerous  and  inimical  to  herself.  Indeed  this  woman 
was  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the  bitter  quarrel 
which  at  last  brought  this  unhappy  marriage  to  an 
end.  For  the  mutual  good-feeling  with  which  husband 
and  wife  had  begun  the  year  1835  was  soon  over- 
clouded with  fresh  misunderstanding.  It  is  impossible 
to  do  more  than  guess  at  what  it  was  that  caused  her 
to  wish  to  leave  him  again,  but  it  was  evidently  some- 
thing more  than  the  physical  violence,  which  seems 
hitherto  to  have  been  her  worst  complaint  against 
him  ;  something  which  roused  her  to  an  intolerably 
bitter  sense  of  outrage,  and  made  her  own  family — 
while  still  willing  enough  to  shelter  her — decline  all 
further  personal  relations  with  him ;  which  made  her 
actually  leave  her  husband's  house  for  her  sister's, 
with  the  avowed  intention,  supported  by  all  her 
family,  of  never  going  back  to  him.  She  dates  this 
departure  vaguely  as  some  time  in  the  early  summer. 
But  whatever  had  been  George  Norton's  treatment  of 
her  to  drive  her  to  such  a  step,  the  taking  of  it  evidently 
brought  him  to  his  senses  again.  He  besieged  her 
with  letters,  imploring  her  to  return  to  him.  He 
abased  himself  before  her,  declaring  himself  utterly  in 
the  wrong,  and  ready  to  make  every  amends  in  his 
power,  if  she  would  only  have  mercy  and  forgive. 
His  appeal  had  its  usual  effect  upon  her.  She  had 
mercy,  she  forgave  him.  Against  the  advice  of  nearly 
every  friend  she  had,  she  went  back  to  him,  and  never 
was  woman  more  bitterly  punished  than  she  for  the 
unwise  generosity  of  that  decision. 

Till  that  moment  she  had  known  very  little  of  her 
husband's  pecuniary  resources  except  how  much  she 
herself  had  contributed  to  them;  but  on  her  return, 
with  a  view  perhaps  of  urging  her  to  further  efforts 


I  ou^JL^^    yV)^      j£ 


p.  76] 


1835]  MONEY    MATTERS  77 

in  his  behalf,  he  took  her,  to  a  certain  extent,  into 
his  confidence  in  this  matter.  For  some  time,  indeed, 
he  had  been  in  desperate  straits  for  money — such 
straits,  that  he  seems  to  have  grown  indifferent  to  the 
means  by  which  he  might  relieve  them.  For  instance, 
one  of  the  reasons  he  advanced  to  engage  his  wife's 
patience  towards  his  kinswoman,  Miss  Margaret 
Vaughan,  whose  interference  in  his  household  had 
already  excited  her  resentment,  was  that  he  hoped  to 
get  some  pecuniary  advantage  from  this  lady,  both 
before  and  after  her  death.  Mrs.  Norton  discovered, 
to  her  astonishment,  that  even  in  drawing  up  her  own 
marriage  settlement  there  had  been  some  deception  or 
concealment,  and  that  he  or  his  lawyers  or  his  elder 
brother,  who  was  his  trustee,  had  also  deceived  her 
mother  in  the  amount  of  the  portion  accruing  to  the 
younger  brothers  and  sisters  of  Lord  Grantley ;  con- 
sequently he  (George  Norton)  had  never  possessed  the 
income  accredited  to  him. 

She  tells  how  she  herself  went  at  last  to  her  father's 
old  friend,  the  great  Whig  adviser,  Robert  Ellice,  for 
advice  in  these  perplexities,  and  received  from  him  the 
opinion  that  if  Mr.  Norton's  embarrassments  were  to 
be  relieved  through  her  friends,  it  must  be  on  con- 
dition that  she,  not  he,  was  to  have  the  future  manage- 
ment of  his  affairs.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  husband 
and  wife  were  agreed  on  this  particular  method  which 
she  took  to  help  him  out  of  his  difficulties.  All  the 
old  ill-feeling  between  them  was  soon  revived,  and 
his  conduct  towards  her  was  such  that  from  sheer 
despair  she  fell  ill — a  long,  dreary  illness,  during 
which  she  lost  the  child  which  was  to  have  been 
born  to  her  that  autumn — while  he  went  off,  as 
usual,  to  his  sister,  Lady  Menzies,  for  the  shooting, 
leaving  her  so  scantily  supplied  with  money  for  her 
immediate  necessities  that,  without  her  brother's 
assistance,  she  would  have  hardly  known  what 
to  do. 

Later  in  the  autumn  she  herself  went  away,  taking 


;8  THE  WIFE  [chap,  vii 

her  three  children  for  a  visit  to  her  sister,  Lady 
Seymour,  in  the  country,  leaving  him  alone  at  Storey's 
Gate  till  late  in  January,  while  she  enjoyed  the  only 
happiness  she  ever  could  reckon  on  in  her  troubled 
married  life,  the  undisturbed  possession  of  and  delight 
in  her  little  boys — for  the  very  last  time,  poor  woman ! 
if  she  had  only  known  it.  These  boys  were  (as  she 
herself  expressed  it)  "  the  gleam  of  happiness  and 
compensation  in  her  life."  Her  love  of  all  children 
was  one  of  the  most  characteristic  traits  of  her  nature  ; 
her  love  for  her  own  seems  to  have  called  forth  the 
best  she  had  to  give. 

She  describes  them  one  after  another,  as  they 
came  to  her,  in  the  verses  "  The  Mother's  Heart,"  first 
published  in  1840: 


"When  first  thou  earnest,  gentle,  shy,  and  fond, 
My  eldest-born,  first  hope,  and  dearest  treasure, 
My  heart  received  thee  with  a  joy  beyond 
All  that  it  yet  had  felt  of  earthly  pleasure  ; 
Nor  thought  that  any  love  again  might  be 
So  deep  and  strong  as  that  I  felt  for  thee. 

"Then  thou,  my  merry  love,  bold  in  thy  glee, 
Under  the  bough,  or  by  the  firelight  dancing, 
With  thy  sweet  temper,  and  thy  spirit  free, 

Didst  come,  as  restless  as  a  bird's  wing  glancing  ; 
Full  of  a  wild  and  irrepressible  mirth, 
Like  a  young  sunbeam  to  the  gladdened  earth. 

"And  thine  was  many  an  art  to  win  and  bless, 

The  cold  and  stern  to  joy  and  fondness  warming  ; 
The  coaxing  smile,  the  frequent  soft  caress, 

The  earnest,  tearful  prayer  all  wrath  disarming. 
Again  my  heart  a  new  affection  found, 
But  thought  that  love  with  thee  had  reached  its  bound. 

"At  length  thou  earnest,  thou  the  last  and  least, 

Nicknamed  'The  Emperor'  by  thy  laughing  brothers, 
Because  a  haughty  spirit  swelled  thy  breast, 

And  thou  didst  seek  to  rule  and  sway  the  others  ; 
Mingling  with  every  playful  infant  wile 
A  mindful  majesty  that  made  us  smile. 


i83S]  MOTHER  AND   CHILDREN  79 

"  Dififerent  from  both,  yet  each  succeeding  claim, 
I,  that  all  other  love  had  been  foreswearing, 
Forthwith  admitted,  equal  and  the  same  ; 
Nor  injured  either,  by  this  love's  comparing, 
Nor  stole  a  fraction  from  the  newer  call, 
But  in  the  mother's  heart  found  room  for  all." 

These  boys  were  with  her  as  much  as  her  busy  life 
made  possible.  She  drew  pictures  for  them  and  of 
them,  and  wrote  them  songs  and  sang  to  them.  Long 
years  after,  when  they  had  all  ceased  to  be  children, 
she  describes  some  of  these  moments  together  in  verses 
so  touching  and  so  little  known  that  I  cannot  refrain 
from  quoting  these  few  lines  from  a  long  poem  "To 
my  Piano": 


"Sweet  wert  thou,  Music,  in  the  old  bright  days, 
Ere  the  home  circle  was  a  vanished  dream, 
When  I  sate  young,  by  my  own  hearth  fire's  blaze, 
And  little  children  frolicked  in  its  beam. 

"  Sweet  wert  thou  when  I  saw  those  merry  feet 
Dance  by  the  firelight  on  the  radiant  floor ; 
Restless  as  motes  in  sunbeams,  and  as  fleet, 
They  clapped  their  soft  small  hands  and  shouted,  '  More.' 

"While  flickering  flames  laughed  out  an  answering  smile 
Upon  their  glowing  cheeks  and  foreheads  fair, 
And  threads  of  gold  seemed  twined  among  their  curls 
Of  tangled  and  disturbed  yet  shining  hair." 

The  thought  of  these  children  no  doubt  often  pro- 
tected and  steadied  her  in  the  many  temptations  of 
her  married  life.  For  in  those  days  a  woman  who  left 
her  husband,  even  if  after  a  divorce  she  was  married 
by  her  seducer  and  lived  ever  after  a  perfectly  respect- 
able life,  was  seldom  permitted  to  see  the  children 
she  had  borne  to  her  first  husband,  for  a  week,  a  day, 
an  hour  even,  through  the  years  that  might  intervene 
before  they  grew  into  independent  men  and  women. 
Indeed,  the  women  who  ran  away  from  their  husbands 
in  those  days  must  have  been  very  silly  or  very 
desperate    creatures,   so    far    more    cruel    was    their 


80  THE   WIFE  [chap,  vii 

position  than  that  of  those  women  who  could 
manage  to  keep  their  lovers  and  remain  only 
suspected  of  infidelity  to  their  husbands,  as  long 
as  these  latter  did  not  withdraw  their  nominal 
protection. 

Soon  after  Mrs.  Norton's  return  to  town  from  her 
stay  with  her  sister,  Lady  Seymour,  her  eldest  boy 
had  been  taken  ill  with  scarlatina,  "annihilating" 
all  his  mother's  other  engagements  for  a  time,  as 
she  explains  in  one  of  her  little  notes  to  Babbage. 
But  he  was  better  at  last,  and  it  was  for  him  especially 
that  she  was  looking  forward  to  a  visit  at  Frampton 
Court,  the  house  of  her  brother  Brinsley,  to  which 
all  the  Sheridan  connection  had  been  asked  for  the 
coming  Easter.  I  prefer  to  continue  this  narrative 
in  her  own  words,  written  many  years  later  indeed, 
and  in  a  spirit  of  bitterness  and  hard  finality,  which  at 
the  time  these  events  took  place  she  was  very  far  from 
feeling,  yet  always  the  best  evidence  of  what  actually 
took  place  on  this  occasion. 

"  I  was  then  on  perfectly  friendly  terms  with  Mr. 
Norton.  .  .  .  He  had  written  me  while  I  was  at  my 
sister's  [Lady  Seymour's]  at  Christmas,  urging  me  to 
try  both  with  Lord  Melbourne  and  Lord  John  Russell 
to  get  an  appointment  given  to  his  friend.  He  never 
opposed  in  any  way  my  plans  for  the  Easter  holiday, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  urged  me,  now  we  were  friends, 
to  overrule  my  brother's  objections  to  receive  him,  and 
get  him  also  invited,  in  which  attempt  I  did  not  succeed. 
On  the  day  previous  to  that  on  which  I  was  to  leave 
town  I  returned  from  my  drive  and  found  Miss  Vaughan 
had  called  in  my  absence,  and  remained  closeted  with 
my  husband  for  some  time.  Lord  Melbourne  was 
with  him  when  I  came  in  ;  and  they  were  talking 
together.  After  Lord  Melbourne  left,  Mr.  Norton 
talked  discontentedly  of  the  appointment,  and  angrily 
at  my  not  getting  that  and  other  pecuniary  interests 
arranged  for  him.  He  also  said  Miss  Vaughan  had 
told  him  if  he  himself  was  not  noticed  by  my  brother 
he  ought  not  to  submit  to  my  going  to  his  house  with 
my  children.     I  said  nothing  should  prevent  my  going 


1836]         QUARREL   ABOUT   THE   CHILDREN  81 

to  my  brother;  that  it  was  Mr.  Norton's  own  fault  he 
was  not  on  terms  with  my  family ;  that  the  doctor  had 
ordered  change  of  air  for  the  elder  child,  who  was 
recovering  from  scarlatina,  and  that  I  should  give  my 
servants  orders  to  refuse  Miss  Vaughan  admittance  to 
my  house,  as  she  laboured  always  for  mischief,  in  spite 
of  my  patience  with  her.  We  parted  angrily,  Mr. 
Norton  to  dine  with  the  Chief  Magistrate,  Sir  Frederick 
Roe,  I  to  dine  with  Lady  Mary  Fox.1  We  spent  the 
evening  together  at  a  party  at  Colonel  Leicester  Stan- 
hope's, and  returned  home  together.  The  dispute  was 
then  renewed  whether  under  the  circumstances  I  should 
go  to  my  brother's.  Mr.  Norton's  last  words  were, 
'  Well,  the  children  shall  not ;  that  I  have  determined,' 
and  as  he  entered  the  house  he  desired  the  servant  to 
unpack  the  carriage  (which  had  been  prepared  for 
starting)  and  take  the  children's  things  out,  for  that 
they  were  not  going.  He  then  went  up  to  the  nursery 
and  repeated  the  order  to  the  nurse.  It  was  admitted 
at  the  trial  that  the  sole  observation  I  made  on  this 
occasion  when  the  nurse  asked  me  what  she  was  to  do 
was  that  Mr.  Norton's  orders  must  be  obeyed.  I  neither 
braved  him  with  useless  words  nor  complained." 

But  she  was  not  a  person  to  submit  meekly  to 
a  tyrannical  decree— and  she  was  neither  calm  nor 
submissive  when  her  maid  helped  her  to  dress  and 
let  her  out  of  the  front  door  the  next  morning  before 
seven  o'clock,  to  hurry  across  the  Park  in  the  grey 
London  twilight,  to  her  sister's  house  in  Spring 
Gardens. 

11  While  I  was  with  my  sister,  the  man-servant  (from 
Storey's  Gate)  came  to  me  and  said  that  something  was 
going  wrong  at  home— that  the  children,  with  their 
things,  had  been  put  into  a  hackney-coach  and  taken 
away,  he  did  not  know  where.  I  had  the  children 
traced  to  Miss  Vaughan's  house,  and  followed  them. 
Anything  like  the  bitter  insolence  of  this  woman — 
who  thought  she  had  baffled  and  conquered  me  for 
life — I  never  experienced ;  she  gave  vent  to  the  most 
violent  and  indecent  answers  to  my  reproaches,  and 

1  A  daughter  of  William  IV.  and  Mrs.  Jordan. 


82  THE  WIFE  [chap,  vii 

said  that  if  I  troubled  her  further  she  would  give  me 
into  the  hands  of  the  police." 

She  did,  however,  manage  to  see  her  children's 
nurse,  and  to  entreat  her  to  stay  with  the  children 
as  long  as  she  was  permitted  to  do  so,  whatever 
else  should  happen  to  them.  She  then  went  on  alone 
to  her  brother's  place  in  the  country,  having  already 
made  up  her  mind  never  to  return  to  her  husband's 
house.  Indeed,  the  time  had  come  when  living  to- 
gether any  longer  was  equally  impossible  for  both 
of  them.  If  she  had  returned  she  would  have  found 
the  door  barred  against  her — and  George  Norton's 
next  step  to  make  the  breach  between  them  as 
impassable  and  public  as  possible  was  to  advertise 
her  in  all  the  daily  papers  as  having  left  his  roof,  and 
himself  as  no  longer  liable  for  her  debts — an  action 
quite  unheard  of  in  his  class  of  society,  useless  from 
a  legal  point  of  view,  and  an  unmerited  insult  to  the 
woman  who  was  still  his  wife  and  the  mother  of  his 
children,  whose  name  was  thus  cast  to  all  the  scandalous 
newspapers  and  gossips  of  the  metropolis  to  be  treated 
as  they  would. 

The  Age  and  the  Satirist,  two  of  the  most  scurrilous 
newspapers  of  the  day,  were  soon  busy  at  work  with 
the  vilest  kind  of  slander  and  innuendo ;  not  only 
against  Mrs.  Norton,  but  against  her  sisters,  her 
brothers,  her  intimate  women  friends ;  publishing 
paragraphs  which  keep  one  amazed  how  their  editors 
were  permitted  to  live  from  day  to  day  without  a 
horsewhipping  from  some  protector  of  the  women 
thus  assailed  by  them.  But  the  most  ruthless  enemies 
she  found  anywhere,  whether  public  or  private,  were 
the  members  of  her  husband's  family,  especially  her 
husband's  elder  brother,  Lord  Grantley. 

So  active  and  malevolent  was  this  nobleman's 
influence  to  prevent  any  favourable  outcome  from  his 
brother's  quarrel  with  his  wife,  that  we  are  drawn 
to  wonder  what   conduct   of   hers   could   ever  have 


1836]  LORD   MELBOURNE  83 

fostered  such  a  temper  towards  her.  We  know  him, 
as  he  looked  in  later  years,  with  a  great  soft  beard 
and  that  false  air  of  benevolence  that  goes  with  a 
broad,  bald  brow,  in  spite  of  the  sensual  little  eyes 
underneath ;  a  man  whose  opinion  of  a  woman's 
virtue  must  always  have  been  influenced  by  his  habit 
of  considering  any  woman  as  a  sort  of  prey.  If  there 
was  ever  a  time  when  he  had  admired  his  beautiful 
young  sister-in-law,  it  was  long  in  the  past.  For  some 
years,  indeed,  he  had  hardly  seen  her;  and  both  he 
and  his  wife  had  always  shown  an  indifference, 
amounting  almost  to  dislike,  to  their  three  nephews, 
one  of  whom  must  succeed  to  the  title  in  absence  of 
children  of  their  own.  The  brothers  had  been,  in 
fact,  for  some  time  at  open  variance ;  but  all  this  was 
forgotten  when  George  Norton  came  down  to  Wonersh 
Park  with  his  three  little  boys  soon  after  their  mother's 
attempt  to  see  them  at  Miss  Vaughan's.  When  he 
went  back  to  London  he  left  them  there  safe  behind 
those  high  brick  walls  and  close-locked  gates;  and 
never  afterwards  did  he  have  a  warmer  counsellor 
and  abettor  than  Lord  Grantley  in  every  plan  he 
made  in  his  anger  to  punish  his  wife  for  defying  his 
commands. 

Lord  Melbourne  was  still  at  his  sister's  country 
place  of  Panshanger,  where  he  had  gone  to  spend  the 
Easter  holiday  while  these  events  were  taking  place 
in  town.  Nothing  can  be  more  friendly,  more 
affectionate,  or  less  like  a  guilty  lover  who  fears  his 
guilt  on  the  point  of  being  found  out  than  his  almost 
daily  letters  to  Mrs.  Norton  during  this  period. 

"  April  6,  1836. 

"  I  hardly  know  what  to  write  to  you,  or  what 
comfort  to  offer.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do,  that  the 
best  course  is  to  keep  yourself  tranquil,  and  not  to 
give  way  to  the  feelings  of  passion  which,  God  knows, 
are  too  natural  to  be  easily  resisted.  This  conduct 
upon  his  part  seems  perfectly  unaccountable,  and, 
.depend  upon  it,  being  as  you  are,  in  the  right,  it  will 


84  THE  WIFE  [chap,  vii 

be  made  ultimately  to  appear,  whatever  temporary 
misrepresentations  may  prevail.  You  cannot  have 
better  or  more  affectionate  advisers  than  you  have 
with  you  upon  the  spot,  who  are  well  acquainted  with 
the  circumstances  01  the  case  and  with  the  characters 
of  those  with  whom  they  have  to  deal.  You  know 
that  I  have  always  counselled  you  to  bear  everything 
and  remain  to  the  last.  I  thought  it  for  the  best.  I 
am  afraid  it  is  no  longer  possible.  Open  breaches  of 
this  kind  are  always  to  be  lamented,  but  you  have  the 
consolation  that  you  have  done  your  utmost  to  stave 
this  extremity  off  as  long  as  possible." 

But  any  consolation  she  might  have  derived  from 
the  good  opinion  of  her  world  in  this  public  discussion 
of  what  had  long  been  her  private  injuries  was  soon 
diminished  by  the  vicious  attack  her  husband,  with 
the  advice  of  his  brother,  Lord  Grantley,  proceeded 
to  make  against  her  reputation.  She  had  been  too 
widely  admired,  and,  moreover,  too  imprudent  in  her 
conduct  not  to  have  laid  herself  open  to  suspicion  in 
a  thousand  ways,  if  any  one  wished  to  take  advantage 
of  her. 

There  was  Mr.  Trelawny,  for  instance,  the  friend 
of  Byron  and  Shelley,  a  hero  of  the  late  Greek  war, 
a  genius,  a  writer,  strikingly  handsome,  as  he  is 
described  by  Fanny  Kemble,  who  also  at  one  time 
excited  his  catholic  fancy ;  "  with  a  countenance 
habitually  serene  and  occasionally  sweet  in  its 
expression,  but  sometimes  savage  with  the  fierceness 
of  a  wild  beast.  His  speech  and  movements  were 
slow  and  indolently  gentle,  his  voice  very  low  and 
musical,  and  his  utterance  deliberate  and  rather 
hesitating;  he  was  very  tall  and  powerfully  made, 
and  altogether  looked  like  the  hero  of  a  wild  life  of 
adventure." 

Every  one  could  remember  how  he  had  admired 
Mrs.  Norton  during  the  past  season,  how  often  they 
had  been  seen  together;  it  was  for  compromising 
evidence  with  this  gentleman  among  others  that  Lord 


1836]        LETTER   FROM   LORD   MELBOURNE  85 

Grantley  advised  his  brother  to  search  among  the 
letters  and  papers  his  wife  had  left  behind  her  in  her 
unpremeditated  departure  of  March  30.  She  had  left 
everything  behind  her,  even  her  wearing  apparel, 
when  she  went  away,  so  far  was  it  from  her  mind  at 
that  time  "  never  to  come  back."  But  all  search  seems 
to  have  been  unavailing. 

Lord  Melbourne's  next  letter  to  Mrs.  Norton  was 
written  after  the  rumour  got  abroad  of  these  attempts 
to  compromise  her. 

"  April '8,  1836. 

"  It  is  vain  to  rail,  otherwise  I  could  do  so  too  : 
but  it  was  at  all  times  easy  to  see  that  it  was  the  most 
dangerous  and  ill-conditioned  creature  possible,  and 
that  there  was  nothing  that  might  not  be  expected 
from  such  a  mixture  of  folly  and  malignity.  I  am  very 
glad  Charlie  is  gone  down.  You  have  now  real  friends 
about  you.  You  describe  me  very  truly  when  you  say 
that  I  am  always  more  annoyed  that  there  is  a  row 
than  sorry  for  the  persons  engaged  in  it.  But,  after 
all,  you  know  you  can  count  upon  me.  I  wonder  that 
you  should  think  it  possible  that  I  should  communicate 
your  letters  to  any  one  else  ;  I  have  heard  no  one 
mention  the  subject.  Lord  Holland  did,  in  one  of  his 
letters,  and  1  answered  him  exactly  to  the  effect  you 
told  me,  as  I  must  have  done  without  being  told, 
namely,  that  I  had  seen  you  with  Norton  the  day 
before  you  left  town,  and  that  I  knew  that  he  was 
perfectly  well  acquainted  with  your  intention  of  going 
into  the  country,  because  he,  in  my  hearing,  suggested 
putting  it  off  from  Wednesday,  I  believe,  till  Saturday. 
I  have  also  seen  one  paragraph  relating  to  the  matter 
in  one  of  the  newspapers,  and  this  is  all  that  has 
reached  me.  I  shall  be  in  town  again  on  Monday. 
Adieu. 

"  Yours, 

"  Melbourne." 

He  resumes  two  days  later  in  even  greater  indigna- 
tion at  the  malignant  futility  which  marked  this  stage 
of  George  Norton's  proceedings  against  his  wife  : 


86  THE  WIFE  [ 


CHAP.    VII 


"April  10. 

"  Never,  to  be  sure,  was  there  such  conduct. 
To  set  on  foot  that  sort  of  inquiry  without  the 
slightest  real  ground  for  it !  But  it  does  not  surprise 
me.  I  have  always  known  that  there  was  there  a 
mixture  of  folly  and  violence  which  might  lead  to  any 
absurdity  or  any  injustice.  You  know  so  well  my 
opinion  that  it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  repeat  it. 
I  have  always  told  you  that  a  woman  should  never 

Eart  from  her  husband  whilst  she  can  remain  with 
im.  This  is  generally  the  case;  particularly  so  in 
such  a  case  as  yours,  that  is,  in  the  case  of  a  young, 
handsome  woman  of  lively  imagination,  fond  of  com- 
pany and  conversation,  and  whose  celebrity  and 
superiority  has  necessarily  created  many  enemies. 
Depend  upon  it,  if  a  reconciliation  is  feasible  there 
can  be  no  doubt  of  the  prudence  of  it.  It  is  so  evident 
that  it  is  unnecessary  to  expatiate  upon  it.  Lord 
Holland,  who  is  almost  the  only  person  who  has 
mentioned  the  subject  to  me,  is  entirely  of  that 
opinion. 

"  Yours, 

"  Melbourne." 


The  following  letter  still  contemplates  the  possi- 
bility of  a  reconciliation. 

"South  Street, April  19,  1836. 

"  If,  for  the  sake  of  your  children,  you  think  you 
can  endure  to  return  to  him,  you  certainly  will  act 
most  wisely  and  prudently  for  yourself  in  doing  so. 
I  advise  you,  however,  to  take  no  step  of  yourself 
without  the  advice  of  Seymour  and  Graham  ;  and  if 
you  determine  upon  writing  to  Mr.  Barlow,  send 
your  letter  open  to  them,  giving  them  a  discretionary 
power  either  to  send  or  withhold  it.  Keep  up  your 
spirits ;  agitate  yourself  as  little  as  possible ;  do  not 
be  too  anxious  about  rumours  and  the  opinion  of 
4  the  world ' ;  being,  as  you  are,  innocent  and  in  the 
right,  you  will  in  the  end  bring  everything  round. 

"  Yours, 

"  Melbourne." 


1836]        MR.   NORTON'S  SUIT  FOR   DIVORCE  87 

But  this  last  letter  was  in  response  to  one  from 
her  in  which  she  herself  proposed  to  return  to  her 
husband,  if  he  would  receive  her.  She  believed  him 
unfaithful  to  her  ;  she  knew  that  he  was  base,  that  far 
from  being  the  injured  husband  he  pretended,  he  had 
been  far  more  ready  than  she  ever  was  to  traffic  in  the 
admiration  excited  by  her  among  men  who  could  do 
him  favours ;  but  he  was  the  father  of  her  three  little 
children,  and  a  return  to  him  seemed  the  quickest  and 
surest  way  of  making  them  hers  again.  She  had  been 
parted  from  them  only  three  weeks,  and  already  the 
agony  of  despair  sounds  through  the  letter  she 
finally  did  write  and  was  allowed  to  send  to  Mr. 
Barlow,  the  clergyman  of  the  little  Duke  Street 
chapel  where  she  and  her  husband  went  to  church. 
Enough  of  this  letter  is  quoted  by  Fitzgerald  in  his 
"  Lives  of  the  Sheridans  "  to  show  how  ready  she  was 
to  make  any  concession  with  this  end  in  view. 

"  She  begs  him  to  act  as  an  intercessor,  offering 
every  kind  of  submission  or  amende  that  could  be 
desired.  If  she  had  made  any  harsh  speeches  or 
declarations  that  she  would  not  stay  with  Mr.  Norton, 
she  repented.  All  she  asked  was  a  year's  trial  in  his 
company  and  that  of  her  children.  '  An  eternal  separa- 
tion from  them  will  kill  me.'  While  as  to  the  late 
imputations,  she  protested  her  complete  innocence, 
offering  piteously,  if  it  pleased  him,  to  admit  folly  and 
vanity  and  thoughtlessness." 

Her  husband,  however,  did  not  want  to  take  her 
back.  He  was  already  too  far  enveloped  in  an 
influence  utterly  unfriendly  to  her  to  show  any  mercy 
to  her  appeal.  His  answer  was  the  announcement 
that  he  .was  already  decided  to  proceed  to  the  last 
extremity  against  her — to  divorce  her.  The  first  step 
on  the  part  of  the  husband  in  an  action  for  divorce 
in  those  days  was  to  bring  a  civil  suit  for  damages 
against  the  man  he  believed  guilty  of  alienating  his 
wife's  affections.    George  Norton  now  declared  he  was 


88  THE  WIFE  [chap,  vii 

about  to  bring  such  a  suit,  and  no  one  was  more 
struck  with  amazement  and  helpless  indignation  than 
his  own  wife  when  she  heard  that  the  person  he  had 
pitched  upon  for  co-respondent  was  his  late  benefactor 
and  her  old  friend,  the  Whig  Prime  Minister,  Lord 
Melbourne. 

Almost  any  one  else  he  might  have  chosen  with  a 
better  show  of  a  real  grievance,  for  jealousy  of  Lord 
Melbourne  had  been  the  last  feeling  this  friendship  of 
his  wife's  had  ever  excited  in  him.  On  the  contrary, 
from  the  first  he  had  done  everything  in  his  power 
to  foster  their  relation  with  one  another.  When  Lord 
Melbourne  was  in  the  drawing-room,  he  had  been 
known  to  deny  her  to  members  of  her  own  family. 
When  she  was  ill  the  spring  after  William's  birth,  and 
for  a  long  time  confined  to  her  room  upstairs,  George 
Norton  saw  no  reason  why  Lord  Melbourne  should 
not  be  admitted  to  see  her  there.  And  even  in  cases 
where  a  husband  might  justly  have  interfered,  where 
her  reckless  disregard  for  the  conventions  of  society 
laid  her  open,  perhaps  justly,  to  unfriendly  criticism, 
as  when,  for  instance,  she  went  and  saw  Lord  Mel- 
bourne alone  at  his  own  house,  Mr.  Norton  often  went 
with  her,  strolling  across  the  bottom  of  the  Park  and 
leaving  her  at  the  official  door  in  Downing  Street. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    MELBOURNE   TRIAL— HER   STRUGGLE    FOR   THE 
POSSESSION    OF    HER   CHILDREN 

There  is  another  letter  of  Mrs.  Norton's,  written 
probably  just  before  she  received  the  notice  of  her 
husband's  new  attempt  to  destroy  her  reputation  ;  and 
though  it  has  nothing  directly  to  do  with  the  matter 
which  must  have  been  absorbing  her  at  that  time,  I 
insert  it  in  its  chronological  order,  as  an  illustration  of 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  traits  of  that  many-sided 
character,  a  quality  which  never  seemed  to  fall  into 
abeyance,  however  confused  and  distracted  with  mis- 
fortune she  herself  might  be — the  desire  to  be  of 
service,  to  be  kind. 

It  is  written  to  Mrs.  Shelley,  in  answer  to  a  note 
from  the  poet's  widow,  sent  after  the  death  of  William 
Godwin,  April  7,  1836,  before  anything  but  a  confused 
rumour  of  Mrs.  Norton's  trouble  with  her  husband 
had  got  abroad,  asking  her  to  use  her  influence  with 
the  Prime  Minister  to  have  the  pension  of  the  old 
philosopher  continued  to  his  wife,  whose  sole  support 
it  was.  This  request  was  instantly  complied  with, 
and  the  following  letter  includes  Lord  Melbourne's 
reply  to  it : 

"  Aptil  21,  1836. 

"I    cannot    give    Mrs.    Godwin    any   part    of   her 
husband's  income,  because  the  place  is  now  abolished. 
89  12 


90  THE  MELBOURNE  TRIAL  [chap,  viii 

But  if  Mrs.  Shelley  will  send  me  the  case,  I  will  try  if 
I  cannot  give  her  some  assistance. 

"  Melbourne." 

Mrs.  Norton's  own  letter  is  as  follows  : 

"  Frampton,  Dorchester, 
a  April  2i. 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Shelley, 

"  I  suppose  Lord  Melbourne  proposes  to  make 
the  Royal  Bounty  Fund  available  in  the  case  of  poor 
Mrs.  Godwin,  as  in  others  where  it  has  been  difficult 
to  arrange  what  should  be  done  where  a  pension  is 
impossible.  Do  not  suppose  that  any  worries  of  my 
own  would  ever  prevent  my  doing  what  I  could  for 
any  one,  far  less  for  you,  of  whom,  though  I  know 
comparatively  little,  I  have  heard  and  thought  a  great 
deal.  I  shall  be  at  my  brother  Brinsley's  in  Grosvenor 
Place  to-morrow  and  during  the  week,  so  if  you 
wish  to  address  me  a  line  on  the  subject  of  your 
petition  to  Lord  Melbourne,  it  will  find  me  there. 
But,  indeed,  I  think  you  should  want  no  advocate  in 
such  a  cause,  and  if  you  do,  there  cannot  be  a  better 
than  yourself,  the  winning  frankness  of  whose  manner 
would  please  him,  as  I  remember  it  enchanted  me. 

"If  you  see  Trelawny,  remember  me  to  him,  and  say 
that  I  have  executed  his  wish  with  more  alacrity  than 
he  has  done  mine ;  and  that  I  wish  him  to  send  my 
sketch-book,  etc.,  to  Grosvenor  Square,  or  leave  them 
there  himself. 

"  I  know  he  has  many  things  just  now  to  attend  to 
for  other  people,  so  I  did  not  mean  it  as  a  reproach.  I 
was  glad  Lady  Dorothy  Campbell  won  her  cause 1 ;  it 
is  an  unjust  law  which  makes  a  mother's  claim  so 
vague.  I  trust  your  son  is  well,  and  in  all  ways  a 
pleasure  and  comfort  to  you. 

"  Yours  very  sincerely, 

"  Caroline  Norton." 

Lord  Melbourne  was  able  to  make  the  Royal  Bounty 
available  for  some  years  at  least,  and  the  service 
rendered  at  such  a  time  is  explanation  enough  for 
the  exceeding  intimacy  of  the  later  correspondence 

1  A  suit  in  Chancery  for  the  possession  of  her  children. 


1836]       ATTEMPT  TO   RECOVER  HER   BOYS  91 

between  two  women  who  hitherto,  as  this  letter 
itself  declares,  had  known  comparatively  little  of  each 
other. 

One  wonders,  indeed,  whether  it  does  not  give  the 
date  of  an  attempt  which  has  passed  into  tradition  in 
the  little  village  of  Wonersh— the  tradition  that  once 
at  least  while  the  children  were  staying  there,  their 
mother  came  down  from  London  to  see  them  and  try 
to  carry  them  off;  that  with  the  help  of  one  of  the 
servants,  perhaps,  she  managed  to  get  through  the 
usually  close-barred  gates  unperceived ;  that  for  a 
moment  it  almost  seemed  as  if  she  would  succeed  in 
her  desperate  attempt.  The  scrap  quoted  by  Fitzgerald 
among  Mrs.  Norton's  letters  to  Mrs.  Shelley  relates  as 
follows : 

"  I  failed.  I  saw  them  all ;  carried  Brin  to  the  gate, 
could  not  open  it,  and  was  afraid  they  would  tear  him 
to  pieces,  they  caught  him  so  fiercely.  And  the  elder 
one  was  so  frightened  he  did  not  follow.  It  may  be  a 
sin,  but  I  do  curse  them  and  their  dogged  brutality. 
If  a  strong  arm  had  been  with  me,  I  should  have  done 
it.  I  tell  you  this  because  I  know  you  have  a  real 
wish  to  know." 

A  real  wish  to  know,  no  doubt,  and  fewer  reserves 
of  sympathy  than  Mrs.  Norton's  own  people,  who 
could  have  hardly  lent  themselves  to  an  attempt  to 
kidnap  her  children  without  being  prepared  to  meet 
the  penalties  of  breaking  the  law  of  the  land  in  which 
they  lived,  the  English  father's  absolute  right  over 
his  children  being  unaffected  by  any  claims  or  wrongs 
on  the  part  of  the  mother. 

But  threatened  as  she  was  by  the  perpetual  loss  of 
her  boys  as  well  as  of  her  reputation,  by  the  suit 
her  husband  was  preparing  to  bring  against  Lord 
Melbourne,  the  situation  was  almost  as  serious  for  the 
Prime  Minister,  who  saw  himself  face  to  face  with 
political  ruin  if  the  charges  against  him  could  be  sub- 
stantiated.    His  first  letter  to  Mrs.  Norton  after  the 


92  THE  MELBOURNE  TRIAL         [chap,  viii 

news  had  reached  him  that  he  was  to  be  the  object  of 
George  Norton's  next  attack  is  anything  but  compli- 
mentary to  that  gentleman : 

"  South  Street,  April  23. 

"  I  send  you  a  letter  which  I  wrote  yesterday  with 
the  intention  of  sending  it.  I  hope  you  will  not  take 
it  ill  if  I  implore  you  to  try  at  least  to  be  calm  under 
these  trials.  You  know  that  whatever  is  alleged  (if  it 
be  alleged)  is  utterly  false,  and  what  is  false  can  rarely 
be  made  to  appear  true.  The  steps  which  it  will  be 
prudent  to  take  it  will  be  impossible  to  determine 
until  we  know  more  certainly  the  course  that  is  in- 
tended to  be  pursued.  If  any  servant  of  mine,  or  any 
one  that  has  left  within  the  last  six  years,  has  been 
interrogated,  I  think  I  should  have  heard  of  it.  But, 
whoever  may  be  interrogated,  no  one  can  depose 
anything  which  can  affect  you  or  me." 

But  his  anxiety  on  the  subject  had  much  to  do  with 
the  illness,  serious  enough  to  be  mentioned  in  all  the 
papers,  which  overtook  him  soon  after  writing  this 
letter.     Creevey  speaks  of  it  in  his  diary  : 

"  Melbourne  has  been  very  ill,  but  is  better  and  will 
do.  Young  (his  secretary)  told  me  that  he  had  been 
terribly  annoyed  by  the  Norton  concern.  The  in- 
sanity of  men  writing  letters  in  such  cases  is  to  me 
incomprehensible.  She  has  plenty  of  Melbourne's 
and  others,  but  according  to  what  is  considered  the 
best  authority,  the  Solicitor-General  of  the  Tories, 
Follett,  has  saved  Melbourne,  though  employed  against 
him.  Follett  is  said  to  have  asked  Norton  if  it  was 
true  that  he  had  ever  walked  with  Mrs.  Norton  to 
Lord  Melbourne's  house  and  then  left  her  there. 
Upon  Norton's  saying  that  it  was  so,  Follett  told  him 
there  was  an  end  of  his  action." 

The  action  did  not  end  here,  however.  Lord 
Melbourne's  next  letter  is  in  answer  to  a  complaint 
from  Mrs.  Norton  at  having  to  submit  to  an  insulting 
interview  with  the  solicitor  managing  his  case  : 


1836]        LETTER   FROM   LORD   MELBOURNE  93 

"South  Street,  June  9,  1836. 

"  I  have  received  your  letter,  and  have  given  such 
instruction  as  I  trust  will  be  for  the  best.  I  do  not 
wonder  at  the  impression  made  upon  you.  I  knew  it 
would  be  so,  and  therefore  I  was  almost  unwilling  to 
have  the  interview  take  place  at  all.  All  the  attorneys 
I  have  ever  seen  have  the  same  manner  :  hard,  cold, 
incredulous,  distrustful,  sarcastic,  sneering.  They  are 
said  to  be  conversant  in  the  worst  part  of  human 
nature,  and  with  the  most  discreditable  transactions. 
They  have  so  many  falsehoods  told  them,  that  they 
place  confidence  in  none. 

"  1  have  sent  your  note,  having  read  it.  I  daresay 
you  think  me  unfeeling ;  but  I  declare  that  since  I 
first  heard  1  was  proceeded  against  I  have  suffered 
more  intensely  than  I  ever  did  in  my  life.  I  had 
neither  sleep  nor  appetite,  and  I  attributed  the  whole 
of  my  illness  (at  least  the  severity  of  it)  to  the 
uneasiness  of  my  mind.  Now  what  is  this  uneasiness 
for  ?  Not  for  my  own  character,  because,  as  you 
justly  say,  the  imputation  upon  me  is  as  nothing.  It 
is  not  for  the  political  consequences  to  myself, 
although  I  deeply  feel  the  consequences  that  my 
indiscretion  may  bring  upon  those  who  are  attached 
to  me  or  follow  my  fortunes.  The  real  and  principal 
object  of  my  anxiety  and  solicitude  is  you,  and  the 
situation  in  which  you  have  been  so  unjustly  placed 
by  the  circumstances  which  have  taken  place." 

The  trial  came  to  a  hearing  on  June  22  in  a  room  of 
the  old  Westminster  Courts  of  Law,  since  destroyed 
to  make  place  for  the  new  Houses  of  Parliament,  the 
preliminary  notice  for  it  having  been  delayed  till 
the  last  possible  date  permitted  by  the  law — so 
constant  was  the  hope  in  many  quarters  that  it  would 
finally  be  settled  out  of  court. 

It  was  tried  before  Lord  Chief  Justice  Tindal ; 
Sir  William  Follett,  Solicitor-General  for  the  Peel 
administration  of  1835,  being  counsel  for  the  plaintiff, 
while  Sir  John   Campbell,1  Attorney-General   under 

1  Afterwards  Lord  Campbell,  and  author  of  "  Lives  of  the  Lord 
Chancellors." 


g4  THE   MELBOURNE   TRIAL         [chap,  viii 

Melbourne,  was  for  the  defence,  with  Sir  Frederick 
Thesiger  and  Thomas  Noon  Talfourd,  two  good 
Whig  barristers,  devoted  to  the  administration,  as 
assistant  counsel. 

There  had  been  great  talk  beforehand  of  com- 
promising letters  by  Lord  Melbourne,  which  were  to 
be  produced  in  evidence  against  him ;  but  on  the  day 
of  trial  all  that  appeared  were  several  little  notes  of 
the  utmost  brevity  and  unimportance.  So  in  the 
end  the  case  chiefly  depended  upon  witnesses  of 
low  character,  chiefly  servants — a  woman  who  had 
been  discharged  by  Mrs.  Norton  for  unchastity ;  a 
footman  who  had  been  discharged  by  his  master  for 
his  bad  habits.  The  only  respectable  person  among 
them  was  Martha  Moore,  then  under-nurse  to  the 
three  children,  and  she  had  nothing  to  tell  except 
the  mere  fact  of  her  mistress's  departure  from  Storey's 
Gate  on  March  30.  The  others  either  broke  down  on 
cross-examination,  or  made  out  so  weak  a  case  that 
Sir  John  Campbell  did  not  even  call  the  witnesses  for 
the  defence  with  which  he  had  come  provided.  He 
began  his  speech  for  the  defence  a  little  after  six  in  the 
evening,  and  continued  till  nearly  midnight.  The  jury 
pronounced  for  the  defence  without  leaving  the  box,  and 
the  verdict  was  received  with  cheers,  which  sufficiently 
showed  the  temper  of  the  crowded  court-room. 
Indeed  the  feeling  was  already  on  the  increase  that 
the  whole  affair  had  been  a  shabby  plot  conceived  by 
a  few  enemies  of  the  Government  to  ruin  the  Whig 
Prime  Minister ;  and  that  the  plaintiff's  loss  of  his 
case  was  no  more  than  he  deserved  under  the  circum- 
stances, while  Lord  Melbourne's  acquittal  was  really 
a  victory  for  his  party. 

Sir  John  Campbell  went  immediately  after  the  trial, 
late  as  it  was,  to  the  Commons,  who  were  sitting, 
since  the  burning  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  in  the 
crypt  of  St.  Stephen's  Church,  where  he  was  received 
with  uproarious  applause — only  from  the  Whig 
benches,  however.     Lord  Malmesbury  gives  a  good 


1836]  LETTER  TO   MRS.   SHELLEY  95 

specimen  of  the  animus  the  Tories  still  showed  in 
the  matter  when  he  remarks  in  his  diary  that,  as  far 
as  he  could  see,  the  trial  had  only  shown  that  "  Mel- 
bourne had  had  more  opportunities  than  any  man 
ever  had  before  and  had  made  no  use  of  them." 

Indeed  that  was  all  Sir  John  Campbell  wished  or 
meant  to  prove.  It  was  none  of  his  business  to  attack 
any  part  of  the  case  against  his  client  which  touched 
only  on  the  reputation  of  the  woman  who  was  just 
as  much  its  victim.  He  was  not  her  counsel ;  indeed 
the  woman  in  such  a  case  had  no  counsel,  not  being 
a  legal  party  in  the  suit. 

A  ridiculous  mistake  occurs  in  Clayton's  book  on 
Rogers  when  the  author  says  that  the  old  poet 
accompanied  Mrs.  Norton  into  court  on  the  first  day 
of  this  trial.  She  never  appeared  in  court.  A  letter 
of  hers  to  Mrs.' Shelley,  written  two  days  afterwards, 
tells  where  she  was  and  what  she  was  doing  while 
her  fate  thus  hung  in  the  balance. 

"  Hampton  Court, 

"  Saturday,  June  25. 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Shelley, 

11  Thank  you  for  writing  to  me.  My  friends 
are  very  kind,  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  bitterly 
the  disgusting  details  of  that  unhappy  trial.  You  will 
see,  if  you  have  read  it,  that  the  girl  Eliza  Gibson 
deposes  that  every  day,  or  generally  every  day  during 
the  months  of  July,  August,  and  September  1833,  I 
was  occupied  painting  and  sinning.  In  that  August 
my  youngest  child  was  born,  and  during  that 
September  I  was  on  the  sofa,  and  when  I  was  able 
to  move  I  went  to  Worthing  with  my  children.  She 
says  too  that  Mr.  Norton  examined  her ;  and  he 
allowed  her  evidence  to  be  brought  forward  against 
me,  knowing  it  not  only  to  be  a  lie,  but  a  lie  which 
the  parish  register,  or  the  nurse  who  sat  in  the 
witness-room,  could  contradict  in  a  moment. 

"  Well,  a  woman  is  made  a  helpless  wretch  by  these 
laws  of  men,  or  she  would  be  allowed  a  defence,  a 
counsel,  in  such  an  hour.  I  was  in  Spring  Gardens; 
I  could  send  notes  to  disprove  the  evidence  of  each 


96  THE   MELBOURNE  TRIAL         [chap,  vm 

witness,  and  they  were  of  no  use  unless  they  bore  on 
the  defendant's  case.  To  go  for  nothing  in  a  trial  which 
decides  one's  fate  for  life  is  hard.  However,  it  is  past, 
and  I  am  very  thankful.  I  have  not  heard  what  is  to 
become  of  my  poor  boys ;  but  I  am  not  now  obliged  to 
remain  inactive,  as  before.  I  have  been  very  seriously 
ill  ever  since  that  day  and  half  a  night  of  terrible 
suspense. 

11  I  can  say  nothing  more  at  present,  therefore  I  will 
conclude  by  thanking  you  once  more  for  the  kind 
interest  you  have  shown,  and  promising  to  send  you 
news  of  what  is  settled  to  be  done.  I  suppose  your 
son  is  not  with  you  yet.  I  hope  he  will  always  be  a 
pleasure  and  a  pride  to  you,  who  have  so  much  of  the 
mother  in  your  heart ;  and  am  (stupefied  and  beat), 
"  Yours  very  truly, 

"Caroline  Norton." 

Mr.  Norton  having  thus  failed  in  his  suit  for 
damages,  was  no  longer  in  a  position  to  continue  his 
action  to  divorce  his  wife,  and  she  was  equally  un- 
able to  divorce  him  because,  on  returning  to  him  in 
1835,  a  few  months  before  their  last  quarrel,  she  had 
condoned  all  her  husband's  worst  acts  of  cruelty  and 
infidelity  against  her,  and  was  no  longer  able  to  bring 
them  up  as  evidence  in  her  case  before  the  courts. 

There  was  nothing  left  for  them,  therefore,  but  to 
find  some  terms  for  a  legal  separation.  Such  separa- 
tions differed  practically  very  little  from  a  divorce 
granted  by  Doctors'  Commons,  as  the  ecclesiastical 
divorce  court  was  sometimes  called. 

But  while  the  judgment  from  the  ecclesiastical 
courts  could  only  be  obtained  at  great  expense,  and 
on  proof  of  unpardonable  guilt  on  one  side  or  the 
other,  a  legal  separation  could  be  entered  into  at  will, 
on  the  mutual  consent  of  the  persons  desiring  it ;  was, 
in  fact,  nothing  more  than  a  sort  of  legal  arrangement 
by  which  a  wife  desirous  of  living  apart  from  her 
husband  had  secured  to  her,  either  some  part  of  her 
own  property  of  which  she  had  lost  possession  on  her 
marriage  (a  married  woman  being  by  law  incapable  of 


i836]  A   LEGAL   SEPARATION  97 

owning  property  apart  trom  her  husband)  or  if  she 
had  no  property  of  her  own,  an  allowance  large  enough 
to  enable  her  to  subsist  independently  of  her  husband, 
in  return  for  which  he  was  free  from  liability  for 
any  debts  she  might  contract  over  and  above  the 
sum  agreed  on  between  them. 

But  the  ecclesiastical  courts  so  entirely  disapproved 
of  such  arrangements,  that  the  mere  fact  of  some  such 
understanding  having  once  been  entered  into  between 
two  persons,  if  one  of  them  should  afterwards  have 
occasion  to  plead  for  divorce,  was  considered  ground 
enough  for  refusing  it. 

There  was  this  further  disadvantage  in  the  so-called 
legal  separation  that,  being  an  instrument  drawn  up 
rather  with  the  idea  of  circumventing  than  of  being 
strictly  guided  by  the  law  which  denied  independent 
legal  existence  to  a  married  woman,  it  was  always  a 
question  how  far  they  would  be  recognised  in  the 
civil  courts.  They  were,  indeed,  agreements  made 
outside  the  courts,  both  ecclesiastical  and  of  common 
law,  for  without  a  divorce  the  former  had  no  right 
to  compel  a  man  to  grant  a  wife  an  allowance  or 
even  a  portion  of  her  own  property,  if  she  found  it 
necessary  to  live  apart  from  him,  and  the  latter  could 
only  compel  him  to  support  her  if  it  could  be  proved 
that  he  had  refused  to  receive  her  into  his  house,  and 
that  she  was  entirely  without  other  means  of  sub- 
sistence. 

George  Norton  was  a  lawyer,  and  he  knew  exactly 
how  much  and  how  little  the  law  required  of  him. 
His  first  statement  of  what  he  proposed  to  do  in  this 
matter  he  sent  to  his  wife's  brother  almost  immedi- 
ately after  his  wife's  departure  from  his  house,  and  its 
terms  were  almost  an  insult,  for  he  proposed  to  give 
her  nothing  at  all — except  immunity  from  his  society. 
As  for  the  rest,  her  family  might  support  her,  or  she 
might  earn  her  living  by  writing,  while  he  kept  the 
children  entirely  in  his  own  hands,  her  access  to  them 
being  dependent  on  his  good  pleasure. 

13 


98  THE   MELBOURNE  TRIAL         [chap,  viii 

After  the  trial  he  was  constrained  to  offer  an  allow- 
ance of  £300  a  year,  still  keeping  in  his  hands  the 
possession  of  all  his  children. 

She  wrote  entreating  that  she  might  be  permitted  to 
see  them.  The  youngest  was  already  in  town,  having 
been  brought  up  by  his  nurse  when  she  was  called  to 
testify  at  the  trial.  This  child  the  mother  was  per- 
mitted to  see  at  her  brother's  house  for  half  an  hour 
in  the  presence  of  his  nurse  and  another  of  the 
women  witnesses.  He  was  only  a  baby,  hardly  more 
than  two  years  old.  He  had  not  seen  his  mother  for 
more  than  three  months ;  perhaps  he  hardly  recog- 
nised her,  so  great  was  the  change  that  had  come  over 
her  beauty.  She  had  to  rush  away  into  another  room 
to  struggle  with  her  sobs  and  tears  before  she  could 
force  herself  to  the  voice  and  manner  which  would 
make  him  prefer  her  arms  to  those  of  the  woman  who 
had  so  lately  given  outrageous  testimony  against  her 
in  the  witness-box. 

But  her  request  to  see  the  other  children  was 
granted  only  on  condition  she  came  to  the  chambers 
of  Mr.  Norton's  attorney,  where  they  might  be  brought 
for  half  an  hour  by  two  of  the  women  witnesses  at 
the  trial,  who  were  ordered  to  remain  in  the  room 
during  the  interview.  To  this  proposition  was 
appended  a  note  by  his  own  solicitor  : 

"  Mr.  Norton  has  made  the  appointment  to  see  the 
children  here.     I  cannot  but  regret  it." 

This  offer  she  refused  in  a  letter  to  her  own  legal 
adviser  to  be  transmitted  to  her  husband. 

"  However  bitter  it  may  be  to  me,  I  must  decline 
seeing  my  children  in  the  manner  proposed.  I  say 
nothing  of  the  harshness — the  inhumanity  of  telling 
me  I  must  either  see  them  at  the  chambers  of  his 
solicitor  or  not  at  all ;  but  I  say  it  is  not  decent  that 
the  father  of  those  children  should  force  me,  their 
mother,  out  of  the  very  tenderness  I  bear  them,  to 
visit  them  at  the  chambers  of  the  attorney  who  collected 


1836]        EFFORTS  TO  SEE   HER   CHILDREN  99 

the  evidence,  examined  the  witnesses,  and  conducted 
the  proceedings  for  the  intended  divorce.  I  say  it  is 
not  decent — nay,  that  even  if  I  were  guilty,  it  would 
not  be  decent  to  make  me  such  a  proposition.  But  I 
am  innocent.  I  have  been  pronounced  and  publicly 
declared  innocent  by  the  nobleman  against  whom  that 
ill-advised  action  was  brought.  Why,  then,  are  my 
children  kept  from  me  ? — from  me  whom  even  their 
own  witnesses  proved  to  be  a  careful  and  devoted 
mother.  Mr.  Norton  says  the  law  gives  him  my 
children.  I  know  it  does,  but  the  law  does  no 
more;  it  does  not  compel  me  to  endure  more  than 
separation  from  them ;  and  sooner  than  allow  them  to 
connect  my  visits  in  their  memory  with  secrecy  and 
shame,  I  would  submit  never  again  to  behold  them  till 
they  were  of  an  age  to  visit  me  without  asking  the 
permission  of  any  human  being." 

Eventually  the  children  were  allowed  to  come  to 
her  brother's  house  in  Grosvenor  Square — only  for 
half  an  hour. 

She  had  not  sufficiently  recovered  from  the  agitation 
the  mere  sight  of  them  roused  in  her  to  speak  to  them 
as  well  as  she  could  before  the  two  vulgar,  curious 
women,  whose  presence  was  a  condition  of  the  inter- 
view, before  the  time  had  elapsed ;  and  in  spite  of  her 
entreaties  for  a  moment  more  with  them,  they  were 
hurriedly  taken  away. 

She  met  them  once  by  stealth,  as  they  were  taking 
their  morning  walk  in  St.  James's  Park.  She  tells  of 
this  encounter  somewhere. 

"  My  eldest,  who  is  seven  years  old,  gave  me  a  little 
crumpled  letter  which  he  said  he  had  had  in  his  pocket 
a  fortnight  directed  to  me,  but  that  none  of  the  servants 
would  put  it  in  the  post.  He  was  so  dear  and  in- 
telligent, and  listened  so  attentively  to  all  I  said  to 
him,  that  it  was  a  great,  though  melancholy  satis- 
faction to  have  had  this  interview.  I  know  he  will 
never  forget  me." 

But  Miss  Vaughan,  to  whose  supervision  the  boys 
had  again  been  entrusted  by  their  father,  found  out  this 


ioo  THE   MELBOURNE  TRIAL         [chap,  viii 

chance  meeting  and  prevented  it  ever  happening 
again,  by  taking  them  all  to  drive  for  some  time 
before  she  let  them  out  for  their  daily  exercise. 

At  another  time  their  mother  saw  them  at  their  own 
house,  when  their  father  was  away,  boldly  knocking 
at  the  door,  and  making  her  entrance  past  the  servants. 
But  when  she  attempted  it  again,  the  footman,  more 
influenced,  no  doubt,  by  the  memory  of  his  master's 
anger  than  by  the  desperate  woman  who  was  en- 
treating admittance,  dropped  the  chain  and  roughly 
shut  the  door  in  her  face. 

Too  ill  to  try  again,  and  hearing  that  the  children 
were  to  be  removed  to  Scotland,  she  sent  word  by 
her  doctor  begging  to  be  allowed  only  to  bid  them 
farewell.     To  this  she  was  vouchsafed  no  reply. 

"  She  rose  from  her  sick-bed,  and  wrapping  herself 
in  a  cloak,  proceeded  to  the  St.  Catherine  Docks,  to 
the  Royal  William  steam  vessel,  by  which  she  had  been 
informed  they  were  to  start.  She  remained  on  the 
deck  of  the  vessel  some  hours,  till  it  sailed,  watching 
the  arrival  of  passengers  on  board,  but  the  infants  did 
not  appear.  Persons  having  been  stationed  to  watch 
the  other  packet,  Mrs.  Norton  learnt  that  her  boys  had 
gone  by  the  Dundee  in  company  with  Lord  Grantley, 
the  only  way  to  find  out  about  them  being  by  inquiry 
of  the  steward  of  the  Dundee  steamship." 

She  had  in  the  meantime  written  to  her  mother-in- 
law,  with  whom,  till  these  events,  she  had  always  been 
on  terms  of  affection  and  confidence — enclosing  a  note 
to  the  eldest  child,  and  conjuring  that  lady  to  give  it 
to  him.     To  this  no  answer  was  sent. 

It  was  some  time,  indeed,  before  she  could  do  more 
than  guess  where  her  boys  were.  They  were  finally 
sent  to  Loch  Rannoch,  under. the  care  of  their  aunt, 
Lady  Menzies,  whom  the  two  youngest  had  never  even 
seen,  so  long  had  been  the  estrangement  between  the 
sisters-in-law. 

I  quote  Mrs.  Norton's  own  words  on  this  subject : 


1836]  DEATH   OF   MISS   VAUGHAN  101 

"  There,  with  one  whom  I  knew  to  be  haughty  and 
intemperate,  those  children  were  left,  who  had  hitherto 
been  so  gently  and  tenderly  treated ;  the  eldest  of 
whom  was  delicate  in  health,  sensitive  in  disposition, 
and  just  recovering  from  illness.  The  first  step  she 
made  in  their  education  was  to  flog  this  very  child 
(a  child  of  six)  for  merely  receiving  and  reading  a  letter 
from  me  (I  being  in  England  and  he  in  Scotland),  to 
impress  on  his  memory  that  he  was  not  to  receive 
letters  from  me.  Having  occasion  to  correct  one  still 
younger,  she  stripped  it  naked,  tied  it  to  the  bedpost, 
and  chastised  it  with  a  riding  whip." 

This  first  separation  was  only  a  temporary  one, 
however.  In  December  1836  Miss  Vaughan  died, 
leaving  to  her  cousin  George  Norton  all  her  Yorkshire 
estates,  with  an  income  of  nearly  £2,000  a  year. 
On  her  death,  part  at  least  of  the  strange  unfriendly 
influence  which  had  been  driving  him  to  such  in- 
credible lengths  against  an  innocent  woman — a  woman 
he  had  once  tenderly  loved — seemed  suddenly  to  have 
been  removed. 

In  the  spring  ot  the  following  year  Mrs.  Norton 
received  a  letter  from  him  asking  her  to  come  to 
see  him  in  Miss  Vaughan's  old  house,  No.  1,  Lower 
Berkeley  Street,  then  standing  empty.  This  she 
refused  to  do,  but  consented  to  see  him  in  his  own 
house  (he  had  given  up  Storey's  Gate,  and  was  living 
at  10,  Wilton  Place). 

There  the  husband  and  wife  had  a  long  and  pain- 
ful interview,  during  which  he,  with  perhaps  pardon- 
able treachery  to  his  late  advisers,  confessed  that  he 
himself  had  never  believed  the  charges  he  had  per- 
mitted to  be  brought  against  her,  and  that  the  suit 
had  been  urged  against  his  will.  He  begged  her  to 
come  back  to  him ;  and  though  she  did  not  immediately 
consent  to  this,  she  did  not  entirely  refuse. 

She  took  immediate  advantage  of  his  temporary 
softening  to  her,  however,  to  obtain  that  her  children 
should  be  sent  for  from  Scotland  to  be  with  their 
father  in  Wilton  Place,  and  to  see  them  and  take  them 


io2  THE   MELBOURNE  TRIAL         [chap,  viii 

to  drive  with  her  every  day.  At  the  same  time, 
she  and  George  Norton  also  saw  and  wrote  to  each 
other,  letters  often  affectionate  on  his  part,  sometimes 
reiterating  his  request  to  her  to  come  back  to  him  ; 
sometimes  discussing  conditions,  if  they  should  con- 
tinue to  live  independently  of  each  other ;  and  she,  in 
some  of  her  answers,  was  beguiled  into  her  old  spirit 
of  fun  and  mischief,  signing  herself  "  Hannah  Moore," 
the  name  of  a  woman  whose  murder  in  an  empty 
house,  where  she  had  been  decoyed  for  the  purpose 
by  the  man  who  made  away  with  her,  was  one  of  the 
sensational  incidents  of  the  year.  And  he  acknow- 
ledged the  sinister  suggestion  in  equally  flippant 
spirit  by  signing  himself  "  Greenacre  " — the  name  of 
the  woman's  murderer — a  bit  of  ill-timed  funning  of 
which  both  of  them  were  afterwards  very  much 
ashamed. 

Whether  she  honestly  meant  to  return  to  her 
husband  to  be  his  wife  again  without  reservation, 
as  he  desired,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  A  letter  written 
somewhat  later  to  Mrs.  Shelley  seems  to  show  that 
she  was  not  quite  frank  in  her  promises  to  him. 

"  My  hope  was  to  come  peaceably  to  an  arrange- 
ment ;  I  will  not  say  to  outwit  him,  but  to  secure  the 
boys.  There  is  no  length  of  desperation  or  of  mean- 
ness that  one  may  not  be  driven  to  in  my  situation." 

But  in  the  meantime  her  sister-in-law  and  former 
guest,  Miss  Augusta  Norton,  had  come  to  stay  with 
her  brother  in  Wilton  Place. 

I  continue  the  account  in  Mrs.  Norton's  own 
words  : 

"  A  dispute  followed  as  to  what  I  had  or  had  not 
said  to  this  lady.  Mr.  Norton  complained  that  I  had 
stated  to  her  I  did  not  intend  '  honestly'  to  return  to 
him,  but  to  return  for  the  sake  of  my  children  and  my 
reputation,  and  that  I  had  said  '  I  never  would  live 
with  him  again.' " 


1837]  CHILDREN   SENT  TO   SCOTLAND  103 

The  result  was  an  instant  revulsion  to  all  his  former 
violence  and  suspicion.  When  she  next  came  to  take 
her  children  to  drive,  he  himself  barred  her  entrance 
to  them,  and  pushed  her  out  of  the  house.  She  was 
again  denied  all  access  to  them ;  they  were  again  sent 
back  to  Scotland.  For  four  years  their  mother  not 
only  never  saw  them,  but  seldom  even  knew  where 
they  were.  Once  when  she  wrote  to  ask  after  them 
in  illness,  her  letter  to  the  nurse,  which  contained  no 
syllable  of  offence,  or  beyond  the  subject  of  her 
inquiry,  was  turned  inside  out  and  franked  back  to 
her.     To  quote  her  own  words  : 

"  The  days  and  nights  of  anguish  that  grew  into  the 
struggle  of  years — it  is  even  now  a  pain  to  look  back 
upon  :  even  now  the  hot  agony  of  resentment  and  grief 
rises  in  my  mind  when  I  think  of  the  needless  tyranny 
I  endured  in  this  respect." 

But  from  such  mischievous  tyranny  on  the  part  of 
her  husband  there  was  no  appeal,  because  there  was 
no  law ;  there  was  hardly  any  public  opinion  to  inter- 
fere with  a  father's  absolute  right  over  his  children 
to  the  exclusion  of  their  mother,  if  he  chose  so  to 
assert  it. 

That,  in  the  end,  after  four  years  of  unremitted 
struggle  on  her  part,  she  did  regain  some  limited 
intercourse  with  her  three  little  boys  while  they  were 
still  children,  was  because  she,  single-handed,  was 
able  to  effect  a  change  in  a  law  so  that  it  would  never 
again  be  possible  for  a  man  like  George  Norton  to 
vent  his  spite  in  this  particular  way  on  the  woman 
who  was  unfortunate  enough  to  be  his  wife  and  to 
have  incurred  his  resentment. 


CHAPTER   IX 

EFFORTS   TO   MAKE   HER   OWN    LIVING — A   VOICE   FROM 
THE   FACTORIES 

After  the  trial,  being  utterly  without  resources  of  her 
own — for  she  had  refused  her  husband's  offer  of  £300 
a  year  without  the  possession  of  her  children — Mrs. 
Norton  at  first  took  refuge  with  Mrs.  Sheridan  at  her 
old  home  in  Hampton  Court.  No  mother  could  have 
been  more  devoted  to  all  her  children,  more  rilled  with 
sorrow  and  sympathy  for  this  one  daughter,  who 
would  seem  to  have  needed  her  most.  And  yet  it  is 
hardly  likely  that  two  such  essentially  different  natures 
could  have  helped  each  other  to  bear  what  was  to 
each,  in  her  way,  the  greatest  humiliation  and  sorrow 
of  her  life. 

For  Mrs.  Sheridan  was  already  tried  and  trained  by 
sufferings,  which  she  had  borne  with  a  grave  fortitude 
and  prudence  which  must  have  come  at  last  to  be  the 
very  habit  of  her  mind.  It  is  impossible  she  could 
have  always  understood  or  approved  a  passionate, 
untamed  creature  like  her  daughter,  who  cried  and 
sobbed  when  she  was  hurt,  who  poured  herself  out 
in  intimate,  strong  expression  when  she  was  deeply 
moved,  who  failed  at  all  the  points  where  the  mother 
had  been  most  strong,  who  would  not  keep  still  and 
let  others  act  for  her,  and  often  compromised  her 
own  cause  by  reckless  appeals  or  concessions,  or  wild 
attempts  to  get  back  or  to  see  her  children,  just  at  the 


1836]        LETTER   FROM   LORD   MELBOURNE  105 

moment  when  those  members  of  her  family  to  whom 
the  arrangement  of  her  affairs  had  been  entrusted 
had  hoped  to  wring  more  favourable  terms  from  her 
husband  in  another  way. 

And  she  herself  was  too  sensitive  to  the  moods  and 
judgments  of  those  about  her  not  to  wince  even 
under  tacit  disapproval,  however  little  the  likelihood 
of  such  disapproval  withheld  her  from  what  she 
thought  best  to  do.  Lord  Melbourne's  letters  to  her 
after  the  trial  show  something  of  the  anxiety  all  her 
friends  must  have  felt  at  this  time  lest  she  should 
compromise  herself  with  some  course  of  conduct 
contrary  to  what  they  thought  her  best  interests. 
The  first  of  these  letters  is  in  answer  to  one  from  her, 
to  whom  he  had  written  in  reproach  for  her  complete 
silence  after  the  trial.  He  had  been  afraid  that  her 
bitterness  against  fate  had  taken  the  form  of  anger 
with  him  as  the  chief  cause  ol  her  misfortune.  But 
she  was  not  capable  of  such  petty  resentments.  She 
explained  quite  simply  the  cause  of  her  seeming 
neglect  of  her  old  friend,  her  hopeless  wretchedness 
at  the  fate  of  her  little  children.  And  then  came  his 
reply : 

11  Well,  come  what  may,  I  will  never  again,  from 
silence  or  any  other  symptom,  think  that  you  can 
mean  anything  unkind  or  averse  to  me.  I  have 
already  told  you  that  most  of  the  bitterness  which 
I  have  felt  during  this  affair  was  on  your  account.  I 
don't  think  your  application  to  Norton  was  judicious. 
From  the  beginning,  your  anxiety  to  prevent  publicity 
has  induced  you  to  apply  to  him  too  much.  Every 
communication  elates  him  and  encourages  him  to 
persevere  in  his  brutality.  You  ought  to  know  him 
better  than  I  do,  and  must  do  so.  But  you  seem  to 
me  to  be  hardly  aware  what  a  gnome  he  is,  how 
perfectly  earthly  and  bestial.  He  is  possessed  of  a 
devil,  and  that,  the  meanest  and  basest  fiend  that 
disgraces  the  infernal  regions.  In  my  opinion,  he  has 
made  this  whole  matter  subservient  to  his  pecuniary 
interest.     He   has   got   money   by  it,  from    Blank,  or 


106     EFFORTS  TO  MAKE  HER  OWN  LIVING     [chap,  ix 

some  one  else.  I  should  feel  certain  ol  this  if  it  were 
not  for  his  folly,  which  is  so  excessive  as  to  render 
him  incapable  even  of  forwarding  his  own  designs. 

"  South  Street,  July  19,  1836. 
"  There  is  no  knowing  what  that  man  may  do,  now 
he  is  left  to  the  guidance  of  his  own  feelings  and  to 
the  advice  of  those  about  him.  You  knew  the  state 
of  your  own  domestic  affairs  better  than  I  did.  1  only 
knew  what  you  told  me  ;  but  it  appears  to  me  that  by 
living  with  him  you  had  grown  less  alive  to  his  real 
character  by  being  accustomed  to  it,  and  also  that  you 
were  so  used  to  manage  him  and  to  prevent  his  follies 
that  you  relied  too  much  on  always  being  able  to  do  it. 
Recollect  when  you  were  with  him  how  stupidly  and 
brutally  he  continually  behaved :  particularly,  for 
instance,  to  Helen.  His  conduct  there  always  struck 
me  as  showing  a  violence  which  was  likely  afterwards 
to  break  out.  Now  that  he  has  nobody  to  advise  or 
control  or  soothe  him,  what  follies  or  what  abominable 
conduct  he  may  pursue  it  is  impossible  to  conjecture. 
I  pity  you  about  the  children.  It  is  most  melancholy 
not  to  know  where  they  are  or  with  whom." 

The  next  letter  is  a  comment  on  one  of  the  many 
propositions  submitted  by  her  husband's  lawyers,  in 
his  effort  to  make  her  consent  to  some  sort  of  a  settle- 
ment in  which  the  children  were  not  included  : 

"  South  Street,  July  34. 
"  1  send  you  back  the  copies.  I  agree  very  much  in 
all  you  say  in  your  letter.  The  amount  of  allowance 
makes  a  great  difference.  If  you  could  get  £300  or 
£400  (I  think  you  ought  to  have  the  latter  sum)  the 
arrangement  might  do  tolerably  well.  But  they  are 
very  advantageous  terms  for  him,  and  should  not  be 
agreed  to  except  for  something  approaching  to  an 
equivalent.  I  think  he  should  secure  your  income 
beyond  his  own  life  upon  any  property  which  he  may 
have.  I  have  never  mentioned  money  to  you,  and  I 
hardly  like  to  do  it  now ;  your  feelings  have  been  so 
galled  that  they  have  naturally  become  very  sore  and 
sensitive,  and  I  knew  how  you  might  take  it.  I  have 
had  at  times  a  great  mind  to  send  you  some,  but  I 


1836J        LETTER   FROM   LORD   MELBOURNE  107 

feared  to  do  so.  As  I  trust  we  are  now  upon  terms 
of  confidential  and  affectionate  friendship,  I  venture  to 
say  that  you  have  nothing  to  do  but  express  a  wish, 
and  it  shall  be  instantly  complied  with.  I  miss  you. 
I  miss  your  society  and  conversation  every  day  at  the 
hours  at  which  I  was  accustomed  to  enjoy  them ;  and 
when  you  say  that  your  place  can  be  easily  supplied, 
you  indulge  in  a  little  vanity  and  self-conceit.  You 
know  well  enough  that  there  is  nobody  who  can  fill 
your  place.  ...  I  saw  Brinsley  and  his  wife  the  other 
night  at  Lord  Hertford's.  I  thought  him  rather  cold. 
None  of  them  seem  really  glad  to  see  me,  except 
Charlie.  But  there  is  no  reason  they  should  be.  If 
they  went  upon  my  principle,  or  rather  my  practice, 
of  disliking  those  who  cause  me  trouble,  uneasiness, 
vexation,  without  considering  why  they  do  it,  they 
certainly  would  not  rejoice  in  my  presence. 

"  You  are  quite  right,  and  it  shows  your  good  sense, 
to  bear  in  mind  that  it  may  be  of  permanent  dis- 
advantage to  your  children  to  be  separated  and 
estranged  from  their  father's  family,  upon  whom  they 
must  principally  depend.  I  expect  some  day  or 
another  you  will  have  them  all  thrown  upon  you. 
Adieu. 

"  Yours, 

"  Melbourne." 

It  is  not  likely  that  Mrs.  Norton  accepted  the  offer 
of  money  made  in  this  letter,  though  it  is  no  less  likely 
that  she  was  in  need  of  it.  For  even  the  £50  a  year 
she  inherited  from  her  father  remained  in  the  hands 
of  her  husband,  besides  all  her  clothing,  jewels, 
wedding-presents,  etc.,  which  she  had  left  behind  her, 
and  which  her  husband  had  already  threatened  to  sell 
for  the  money  they  would  bring  him.  Brinsley  had, 
indeed,  made  an  offer  to  pay  all  his  sister's  personal 
debts,  on  condition  that  this  property  was  returned  to 
her ;  but  this  offer  was  refused.  She  was  not,  of 
course,  in  any  danger  of  actual  want.  She  was  one 
of  a  large  and  affectionate  family,  who  would  always 
have  protected  and  supported  her  in  return  for  a 
moderate  consideration  for  their  wishes.     She  had  a 


io8     EFFORTS  TO  MAKE  HER  OWN  LIVING    [chap,  ix 

home  with  her  mother.  Some  sort  of  existence  was 
always  secure  for  her  in  the  tranquil  privacy  of  the 
old  place  where  she  had  grown  up — a  peaceful  enough 
shelter  from  the  storm  of  blame  and  shame  which  was 
beating  against  her  name  everywhere  else. 

She  was  still  at  Hampton  Court  in  October  1836, 
and  something  of  the  chastened  resignation  which 
would  be  engendered  by  the  atmosphere  of  the  place 
seems  to  breathe  through  the  following  letter : 

"  Hampton  Court,  October  4. 

"  Very  cold  and  very  proud  would  the  heart  be, 
dearest  Blank,  which  could  take  amiss  your  gentle 
observations,  even  were  they  less  stamped  with  the 
truth  of  religion  than  those  made  in  your  last  letter. 
Do  not  think  that  I  have  not  already  felt  their  truth 
from  my  innermost  soul ;  and  if  I  have  not  expressed 
my  convictions,  it  is  partly  that  mine  have  been  long 
letters  of  sorrowful  complaint  and  explanation,  and 
partly  that  the  habits  of  a  worldly  life  make  me  re- 
luctant to  affirm  as  my  sentiments  that  which  must 
appear  a  strong  contrast  to  my  actions.  Even  when 
living  flattered  in  my  own  set  (that  narrow  circle  of 
which,  I  think,  Madame  de  Stael  says  that  they  stand 
around  us  and  hide  the  rest  of  the  world)  I  had  many 
things  to  remind  me  how  very  little  all  the  admiration 
or  court  which  can  be  paid  can  make  up  for  unhappi- 
ness  at  home.  Many  and  many  a  night  have  I  gone 
out  to  prove  that  I  could  go  always  to  such  and  such 
places,  and  laughed  restlessly  after  I  got  there,  to 
prove  mortification  and  sorrow  could  not  reach  me, 
when  I  could  have  laid  my  head  on  my  hands  and 
heard  no  more  of  what  was  going  on  than  one  hears 
in  the  vague  murmurs  of  a  waterfall.  Many  nights, 
especially  in  the  last  year  since  my  great  break  with 
my  husband,  I  give  you  my  word  that  I  have  been 
unable  to  collect  myself  to  answer  to  the  purpose 
those  who  addressed  me ;  and  I  have  felt  so  irritable  at 
the  consciousness  that  I  could  not,  and  so  afraid  of  the 
sneering  smile  which  I  thought  I  perceived  now  and 
then  on  the  faces  of  my  acquaintances,  that  I  have 
gone  away  almost  immediately  after  arriving,  unfit  and 
unable  to  go  through  my  evening's  pleasure. 


1836]        LETTER   FROM   HAMPTON   COURT  109 

"  It  is  impossible  to  have  felt  all  this  and  not  also 
have  felt  occasionally  a  remorse  for  wasted  time  ;  and 
it  is  against  my  better  thoughts  and  not  my  worse  that 
I  have  had  to  struggle.  I  have  felt  and  said  to  myself: 
'  Surely  this  is  an  irrational,  un-Christian,  miserable 
way  of  passing  one's  life ! '  And  then  again  rose  Vanity 
and  whispered  :  '  If  you  do  not  go  here  and  there,  it 
will  only  be  supposed  you  were  not  asked.'  And  then 
the  false  aims  and  multitude  of  small  ends  to  be  com- 
passed !  Oh,  depend  on  it,  there  is  no  treadmill  like 
the  life  of  a  woman  of  the  world,  and  you  see  it  in  the 
expression  of  the  face.  It  is  not  late  hours  that  bring 
that  jaded,  anxious  look ;  on  the  contrary,  I  believe  you 
might  sit  up  till  morning  singing  till  the  lark  inter- 
rupted you  and  be  none  the  worse.  It  is  the  perpetual 
struggle  to  be  and  to  do,  and  the  internal  and  continual 
dissatisfaction  with  all  one  is  and  does,  that  eats  away 
the  freshness  of  one's  life. 

"  I  do  not  know  if  you  saw  the  Keepsake  for  this 
year,  and  you  will,  perhaps,  think  it  very  ridiculous  of 
me  to  refer  to  my  own  poetry ;  but  I  never  wrote  any- 
thing more  from  my  heart  than  the  description  written 
more  than  a  year  ago  on  the  print  of  '  Fashion's  Idol ' 
in  that  book  : 


"  Nor  found  in  all  that  rabble  rout, 
Whose  selfish  pleasures  only  cloy, 
One  heart  that  cheered  us  on  in  doubt, 
Or  in  our  triumph  gave  us  joy. 

"  Well,  it  is  over  now,  and  I  may  well  say  that  I  feel 
the  truth  of  your  observations  on  adversity  being  good 
for  us,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  feel  more  thankful  to 
God,  more  conscious  how  many,  many  blessings  have 
fallen  to  my  share  at  this  time  of  sorrow — of  the  only 
real  sorrow  (but  one)  of  my  life — than  I  ever  did  in 
the  days  of  my  murmuring  prosperity. 

"  I  am  sure  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  I  had  news 
of  my  children  two  days  since  through  my  widowed 
sister-in-law,1  to  whom  Mr.  Norton's  youngest  sister 
wrote  a  long  and  satisfactory  account  of  them  (I  hope 
and  think  with   the  intention  that  it  should  be  com- 

1  This  was  Mrs.  Charles  Norton,  widowed  in  1835,  who  was  Miss 
Colin  Campbell,  afterwards  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Edmund  Phipps. 


no    EFFORTS  TO  MAKE  HER  OWN  LIVING    [chap,  ix 

municated  to  me).     I  have  written  to  this  sister.     The 
hope  of  her  answering  is  something  to  look  forward 


to 


The  whole  poem  from  which  she  quoted  is  too  long 
to  introduce  here.  Its  character  is  evident  enough 
from  the  title  and  the  extract  she  herself  has  furnished 
us.  But  however  in  poetry  she  might  despise  and 
call  by  hard  names  of  vanity  and  folly  the  instincts 
that  drew  her  back  to  her  own  kind,  these  were  too 
much  a  part  of  her  to  be  long  denied.  She  might  for 
a  moment  scale  philosophic  heights  from  which  the 
sight  of  averted  faces  and  slights  of  former  friends 
were  matters  of  indifference  to  her.  But  she  would 
have  been  less  herself  if  she  had  ever  been  able  to 
stay  there. 

Even  in  seasons  of  deepest  depression  and  despair 
she  was  an  essentially  social  person,  who  obtained  her 
reactions  by  mingling  with  her  kind.  It  was  a  part  of 
her  very  self,  her  wit,  her  charm,  her  measure  of  life, 
which  made  the  faces  of  her  fellow-creatures  so  neces- 
sary to  her.  And  never  for  a  moment  did  she  let  go 
the  favour  of  the  world,  which  had  been  so  seriously 
jeopardised  by  her  husband's  attack  upon  her 
reputation. 

We  catch  a  glimpse  of  her — dressed  in  pink,  with 
a  black  lace  veil,  her  hair  smooth,  with  a  knot  behind, 
and  a  string  of  small  pearls  across  her  forehead — at  a 
little  dinner  in  the  chambers  of  the  sharp-tongued 
Quarterly  Reviewer,  Abraham  Hayward,  in  the  Temple, 
where  Lord  Lyndhurst  made  them  all  laugh  with  his 
story  of  a  certain  old  lady  who  kept  her  books  in 
detached  book-cases,  the  male  authors  in  one  and  the 
female  in  another,  because  she  did  not  wish  to  add 
to  her  library.  And  this  in  May  1836,  when  all  the 
world  was  ringing  with  George  Norton's  intention  to 
destroy  his  wife's  honour  by  his  suit  against  Lord 
Melbourne. 

When  her  host  of  that  night  saw  her  again,  at  the 


1836]  HOUSE   IN   GREEN   STREET  in 

end  of  the  same  year,  however,  he  was  torced  to 
exclaim  how  thin  and  pale  she  had  grown  in  the 
interval ;  but  she  had  not  lost  her  power  to  attract 
and  amuse,  or  her  need  to  exercise  it. 

The  life  at  Hampton  Court,  with  its  intolerable 
memories  and  its  sad  restraints,  had  already  become 
impossible  for  her,  and  she  had  broken  away  to  make 
her  home  with  her  half-uncle,  Mr.  Charles  Sheridan,  at 
16,  Green  Street,  afterwards  in  Bolton  Street,  May- 
fair.  It  is  about  this  gentleman  that  Rogers  used  to 
tell  the  funny  little  story  to  his  own  disadvantage. 
They  were  playing  forfeits,  and  Miss  Sheridan — it 
was  before  her  marriage — was  condemned  to  kiss  her 
uncle  Charles.  "  Of  course  I  did  it  willingly,"  she 
says.  "And  if  it  had  been  me?"  hinted  Rogers. 
"  Oh,  then  I  should  have  done  it  cheerfully !  " 

There  had  been  a  very  close  and  warm  relation 
between  this  uncle  and  his  widowed  sister-in-law 
and  her  little  children,  ever  since  her  husband's  death 
brought  Mrs.  Sheridan  back  to  England  to  make  her 
home  in  Hampton  Court.  And  of  all  these  nieces 
and  nephews,  Caroline  was  perhaps  his  favourite. 
But  though  possessed  of  ample  means  for  his  own 
necessities,  he  was  not  a  rich  man,  nor  would  she 
have  been  satisfied  to  live  in  entire  dependence  on 
him  under  any  circumstances.  The  house  they  took 
together  in  Green  Street  was  hers  as  well  as  his,  and 
she  was  already  hard  at  work  to  find  the  means  to 
pay  for  it. 

When  she  left  her  husband  she  was  engaged  on  a 
long  poem,  the  manuscript  of  which  was  among  the 
few  papers  she  managed  to  regain  possession  of  with 
the  help  of  her  brother  Charles,  whom  she  sent  to 
get  them  from  a  little  desk  in  her  own  drawing-room 
a  few  days  after  her  flight.  This  poem  she  had 
finished  and  revised  in  the  interval  of  her  anguish 
during  that  miserable  summer,  and  it  had  already 
found  a  publisher  by  October  1. 

There  is  a  certain  noble  appropriateness   to    the 


ii2    EFFORTS  TO  MAKE  HER  OWN  LIVING  [chap,  ix 

finer  side  of  her  nature,  that  the  work  she  was  able 
to  finish  at  such  a  time  was  the  first  of  those  appeals 
to  the  public  to  better  the  conditions  of  the  wretched 
little  creatures  employed  in  factories,  of  which  Mrs. 
Browning's  "  Cry  of  the  Children,"  written  seven 
years  later,  is  the  most  beautiful  example. 

John  Murray,  oi  Albemarle  Street,  accepted  the 
poem  (a  long,  rather  dreary  affair  in  the  Byronic 
stanza),  less  perhaps  from  its  merits — it  is  the  least 
interesting,  the  least  poetic  piece  ot  work  she  ever 
achieved — than  from  its  appositeness  to  the  spirit 
of  the  times;  for  the  year  1836  was  a  time  of  great 
mass  meetings,  vigorous  investigation  of  the  con- 
dition of  child-labour  in  the  factories,  largely  the 
result  of  a  Bill  introduced  into  Parliament  in  1833 
and  warmly  supported  by  Lord  Ashley,  or,  as  he 
is  better  known,  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  just  entered 
upon  that  life-work  of  philanthropy  which  gives  him 
such  a  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  his  countrymen.  Lady 
Ashley  was  before  her  marriage  Lady  Emily  Cowper, 
a  contemporary  and  rival  beauty  of  Georgiana,  youngest 
of  the  three  Sheridans.  Her  mother,  afterwards  Lady 
Palmerston,  was  Lord  Melbourne's  only  sister.  A 
younger  sister  of  Lady  Ashley,  Lady  Fanny  Cowper, 
afterwards  married  to  Lord  Jocelyn,  was  also  a  noted 
beauty  in  her  day. 

Mrs.  Norton's  answer  to  Murray's  acceptance  of  her 
poem  is  as  follows  : 

"Hampton  Court  Palace, 
'■'■October  7,  1836. 

"  I  thank  you  for  the  promptitude  with  which  you 
have  replied  to  me,  nor  do  I  wish  to  express  my 
disappointment  at  the  terms  on  which  you  propose 
to  print  my  little  poem,  having  long  since  found  out 
how  very  common  the  degree  of  literary  talent  is,  of 
which  I  used  to  be  so  vain,  and  therefore  no  longer 
looking  on  either  verse  or  prose  as  a  heap  of  uncoined 
gold.  I  feel  besides  assured  that  after  my  confession 
of  the  disagreeable  position  I  am  in,  you  would  act  as 
liberally  to  me  as  circumstances  would  admit ;  I  do  not 


1836]  LETTER  TO   MURRAY  113 

therefore  fear  anything  on  that  score.  .  .  .  There  is, 
I  believe,  no  question  but  that  I  might  publish  my 
brief  effort  perhaps  in  one  sense  more  advantageously 
among  the  set  of  publishers  who  do  not  even  ask  to  see 
a  book,  but  pay  you  for  it  because  it  is  yours  ;  but  it  is 
a  wish,  a  vanity  of  mine,  to  be  published  by  you.  You 
know  it  is  for  the  third  time  I  have  endeavoured  to 
appear  under  your  auspices.  1  have  sometimes  thought 
that  friends  of  yours  who  are  not  friends  of  mine  have 
thwarted  me  in  this  particular. 

11  If  you  will  publish  my  little  poem  immediately,  I 
shall  be  too  happy  to  send  it  to  Albemarle  Street 
again  without  disputing  terms ;  and  as  for  my  anony- 
mous character,  if  the  poem  has  any  success  at  all,  I 
do  not  wish  to  preserve  it  very  strictly.  I  only  wish 
not  to  look  my  readers  full  in  the  face  on  my  first 
introduction  to  them.  My  name  has  been  (God 
knows)  before  the  public  long  enough  to  make  me 
hate  the  letters  which  compose  the  word.  I  have  a 
slight  shrinking  from  avowing  even  so  light  a  treat- 
ment of  a  political  subject ;  and  my  treatment  of  it, 
such  as  it  is,  is  against  the  opinion  of  some  whom  I 
respect  and  value  amongst  my  friends.  Are  not  Lord 
Ashley's,  Mr.  Murray's,  and  its  own  name  enough  ? 
If  not,  I  am  sure  the  addition  of  mine  would  not  float 
it  after  the  launch.  .  .  . 

"  You  ought  to  encourage  me,  for  you  never  gave 
any  advice  more  faithfully  followed  than  that  which 
you  offered  when  I  was  ambitious  you  should  publish 
my  '  Undying  One ' :  not  to  attempt  strained  and  un- 
natural subjects.  My  '  Voice  from  the  Factories  '  is  in 
the  style  you  bid  me  adhere  to,  and  I  will  still  hope 
that  you  will  take  me  under  your  charge." 

The  person  she  hints  at  as  unfriendly  to  her  is 
Lockhart,  afterwards  one  of  her  very  good  friends. 
The  next  letter  to  Mr.  Murray  shows  clearly  that  it 
was  he  whom  she  meant. 

"  16,  Green  Street,  October  19,  1836. 
"  Dear  Sir, 

"  Owing  to  my  absence  from  Hampton  Court,  I 
have  only  received  the  proofs  this  evening,  and  return 
them  to  you,  hoping  that  you  will  kindly  hasten  the 

15 


ii4    EFFORTS  TO  MAKE  HER  OWN  LIVING  [chap,  ix 

printing,  in  the  form  decided  upon,  as  I  wish  to  see  it 
completed  before  I  leave  town  for  Dorsetshire. 

"  I  trust  dining  with  Adam  Blair  (a  nickname  for 
Lockhart)  did  not  make  you  '  catch  a  dislike  to  me,' 
as  poor  Douglas  Kinnaird  :  once  told  me  he  did,  after 
he  had  dined  with  some  friends  of  his  who  were  not 
friends  of  mine.  He  was  very  cross,  and  when  I  tried 
to  coax  him  out  of  it  he  said :  '  The  fact  is,  I  caught 
cold  last  night  where  I  dined,  there  was  such  a  draft 
of  air;  and  I  also  caught  a  dislike  to  you,  there  was 
so  much  abuse  and  fault-finding.' 

"  Praying  that  you  may  be  kept  from  such  sickness, 
"  Believe  me,  dear  sir, 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  C.  E.  Norton." 

She  was  very  anxious  that  her  poem  should  appear 
before  the  publication  of  a  serious  article  on  the  same 
subject  contemplated  about  the  same  time  by  the 
Quarterly.  But  the  delays  it  suffered  on  its  way 
through  the  press  were  often  of  her  own  making, 
and,  indeed,  sufficiently  characteristic. 

She  did  not  like  the  size  of  the  page  first  submitted 
to  her.  "  I  think  it  too  small.  The  first  little  poem  I 
printed  was  in  that  type  and  of  that  size,  and  nothing 
could  look  worse  than  it  did  when  bound  up." 

Then  she  did  not  have  a  single  book  at  that  moment 
in  her  house  (her  new  house  with  her  uncle  in  Green 
Street),  so  she  must  wait  another  day  till  she  could 
avail  herself  of  Mr.  Murray's  suggestion,  and  choose 
a  pattern  from  his  shelves  of  the  size  she  wished. 

Then  there  were  mistakes  in  sending  the  proof. 
"The  foolish  Irish  woman  who  has  the  care  of  my 
house  never  forwarded  the  papers  you  sent  there. 
She  has  not  yet  been  long  enough  with  me  to  know 
of  what  consequence  letters  and  papers  are  in  my 
eyes,  so  she  very  innocently  wrote  me  word  that 
1  Mr.  Murray  had  sent  some  very  heavy  letters  and 
parcels.     What  will  I  do  with  them?'" 

1  A  brother  of  Lord  Kinnaird  (her  father's  old  friend),  a  banker  in 
Westminster,  who  died  1830. 


fe 


1836-7]  ILLNESS  AND   DEPRESSION  115 

The  poem  finally  appeared  late  in  November,  under 
the  not  very  attractive  name,  "A  Voice  from  the 
Factories";  and  she  received  enough  from  the  sales 
to  give  her  a  certain  confidence  in  the  future — at  least, 
that  part  of  the  future  which  depended  on  her  own 
powers  to  make  her  daily  bread.  But  both  present 
and  future  must  often  have  seemed  unspeakably  dreary 
and  hopeless  during  that  first  winter  alone  with  her 
uncle,  without  her  little  children.  It  is  during  that 
winter  of  1836-7  that  we  begin  to  hear  about  the 
ravages  of  that  exceedingly  modern  plague,  influenza ; 
and  she  was  ill  for  a  long  time.  There  are  some 
verses  of  hers,  published  three  years  later,  which  seem 
to  apply  especially  to  that  period  of  painful  inaction  : 

"  I  was  alone,  but  not  asleep ; 
Too  weary  and  too  weak  to  weep  ; 
My  eyes  had  closed  in  sadness  there, 
And  they  who  watched  o'er  my  despair 
Had  placed  that  dim  light  in  the  room, 
And  deepened  the  surrounding  gloom 
By  curtaining  out  the  few  sad  rays 
Which  made  things  present  to  my  gaze : 
All,  all  because  they  vainly  thought 
At  last  the  night  its  rest  had  brought — 
Alas  !  rest  came  no  more  to  me, 
So  heavy  was  my  misery  ! 

"And  while  I  darkly  rested  there, 
The  breath  of  a  young  child's  floating  hair, 
Perfumed,  and  warm,  and  glistening  bright, 
Swept  past  me  in  the  shrouding  night ; 
And  the  footsteps  of  children,  light  and  quick 
(While  my  heart  beat  loud,  and  my  breath  came  thick), 
Went  to  and  fro  on  the  silent  floor : 
And  the  lock  was  turned  in  the  fastened  door 
As  a  child  may  turn  it,  who  tiptoe  stands 
With  his  fair  round  arms  and  his  dimpled  hands, 
Putting  out  all  their  strength  in  vain 
Admittance  by  his  own  means  to  gain  : 
Till  his  sweet,  impatient  voice  is  heard 
Like  the  chirp  of  a  young  imprisoned  bird, 
Seeking  an  entrance  still  to  win 
By  fond  petitions  to  those  within. 


* 


n6   EFFORTS  TO  MAKE  HER  OWN  LIVING  [chap,  ix 

"A  child's  soft,  shadowy  hair,  bright  smiles, 
His  merry  laugh  and  coaxing  wiles, 
These  are  sweet  things — most  precious  things — 
But  in  spite  of  my  brain's  wild  wanderings, 
I  knew  that  they  dwelt  in  my  fancy  only, 
And  that  I  was  sad,  and  left,  and  lonely  ; 
And  the  fear  of  a  dreadful  madness  came 
And  withered  my  soul  like  a  parching  flame  ; 
And  I  felt  the  strong  delirium  growing, 
And  the  thread  of  my  feeble  senses  going ; 
And  I  heard  with  a  horror  all  untold, 
Which  turned  my  hot  blood  icy  cold, 
Those  light  steps  draw  more  near  my  bed; 
And  by  visions  I  was  visited 
Of  the  gentle  eyes  which  I  might  not  see, 
And  the  faces  that  were  so  far  from  me  ! 

"  And  blest,  oh,  blest !  was  the  morning  beam 
Which  woke  me  up  from  my  fever-dream  ! " 

And  yet  it  was  that  same  winter  that  we  hear  of  her 
return  into  general  society  from  Lord  Malmesbury. 

"  Mrs.  Norton  made  her  debut  a  few  nights  ago,  and 
was  very  well  received.  Her  reception  had  been 
made  a  party  question ;  indeed,  the  whole  business 
has  been." 

We  hear  of  her,  too,  riding  in  the  Park  or  driving  to 
Richmond  with  her  uncle  or  her  sisters,  going  out 
with  them  in  the  evening,  and  herself  giving  little 
dinners  at  her  own  house.  Yet  she  never  really 
resigned  herself  to  her  new  situation.  Long  years 
afterwards,  in  reply  to  a  taunt  of  her  husband's  that, 
in  spite  of  her  contemptuous  abuse  of  him,  she  was 
always  ready  enough  to  renew  friendly  relations  with 
him,  she  breaks  out : 

"  My  husband  is  welcome  to  the  triumph  of  knowing 
that,  especially  during  the  first  four  years  of  our 
separation,  I  often  wavered  and  wept ;  that  pride  and 
bitter  anger  have  not  always  been  uppermost;  that 
there  have  been  hundreds  of  dreary  evenings  and 
hopeless  mornings,  when  even  his  home  seemed  to 


1837]  LONELINESS  117 

me  better  than  no  home — even  his  protection  better 
than  no  protection — and  all  the  thorns  that  can  cumber 
a  woman's  natural  destiny,  better  than  the  unnatural 
position  of  a  separated  wife.  He  is  welcome  to  the 
triumph  of  knowing  that  it  is  impossible  to  have  felt 
more  keenly  than  I  did  the  confused  degradation  of 
that  position.  I  was  too  unlike  his  picture  of  me  to 
be  otherwise  than  often  miserable  ;  often  willing  to 
make  a  raft  out  of  the  wreck,  and  so  drift  back,  even 
to  a  comfortless  haven.  There  were  moments,  too, 
when  I  pitied  him ;  when  I  believed  his  story  of  loneli- 
ness and  repentance." 

It  was  in  this  spirit  she  met  him  when  he  came  back 
to  her  after  Miss  Vaughan's  death,  when  she  consented 
to  see  him  and  treat  with  him  during  the  summer 
while  he  wrote  the  "  Greenacre  Letters."  I  have 
already  told  how  entirely  the  hopes  excited  by  those 
letters  were  deceived  and  betrayed.  She  was  very 
near  despair  when  she  wrote  the  following  to  John 
Murray,  which  I  give  to  show  the  endless  contrasts 
of  that  brilliant,  many-sided  nature,  as  well  as  for  its 
characteristic  wording  and  opinions. 

The  Honourable  Mrs.  Norton  to  John  Murray 

"November  4,  1837. 

"  Dear  Sir, 

"  I  have  received  '  Don  Juan,'  and  the  October 
Quarterly.  In  thanking  you  for  the  two  volumes  of 
Byron  belonging  to  the  present  beautiful  edition,  I 
must  tell  you  that  I  had  never  read  '  Don  Juan  '  through 
before,  which  very  few  women  of  my  age  in  England 
could  say,  and  which  I  do  not  mind  owning,  since  it 
adds  greatly  to  the  pleasure  with  which  I  perused  the 
poem.  I  am  afraid,  in  spite  of  the  beauty,  the  wit,  and 
the  originality  of  the  work,  I  think  with  Guiccioli — 
1  Mi  rincrese  solo  che  Don  Giovani  non  resti,  al  inferno.' 
It  is  a  book  which  no  woman  will  ever  like ;  whether 
for  the  reasons  given  by  the  author,  or  on  other 
accounts,  I  will  not  dispute.  To  me  the  effect  is  like 
hearing  some  sweet  and  touching  melody  familiar 
to  me  as   having  been   sung  by  a   lost  friend   and 


n8   EFFORTS  TO  MAKE  HER  OWN  LIVING  [chap,  ix 

companion,  suddenly  struck  up  in  quick  time  with  all 
the  words  parodied. 

"  I  am  in  town  for  a  short  time,  and  occupied  with 
lawyers  and  law — as  usual.  I  used  to  boast  of  my 
partiality  for  the  Bar  as  a  profession,  but  I  begin  to 
think  it  would  be  pleasanter  to  follow  a  marching 
regiment  than  to  see  the  seamy  side  of  this  intellectual 
trade.  Who  has  sprung  up  as  Mrs.  Norton  in  Bentley's 
Miscellany  ?  It  is  pretty  cool,  of  the  lady  taking  the 
name  and  title  of  my  husband's  wife,  and  I  do  not 
much  like  the  mistake,  as  I  have  been  too  ill  to  write 
for  those  to  whom  I  was  bound  by  the  bond  of  hire. 
11  Yours  ever, 

"  Caroline  Norton." 


CHAPTER  X 

THE    ENGLISH    LAW — ACCESSION   OF   QUEEN    VICTORIA 

The  lawyers  and  law  matters  mentioned  at  the  end  of 
the  last  chapter  relate  to  a  very  worthy  attempt  of  Sir 
John  Bayley,  George  Norton's  chief  legal  adviser,  to 
make  some  kind  of  terms  between  husband  and  wife 
to  which  they  would  both  consent. 

Sir  John  Bayley  had  heard  of  the  case  only  from  his 
client,  and  was  thoroughly  prejudiced  against  Mrs. 
Norton,  whom  he  had  already  judged  as  a  vain  and 
frivolous  woman,  guilty,  even  if  not  actually  convicted 
of  the  grossest  infidelity  against  her  husband,  who 
wanted  a  large  allowance,  that  she  "might  dash  about 
to  fashionable  parties,"  and  the  possession  of  her 
children,  that  she  might  save  her  reputation  with  the 
world.  In  all  earlier  discussion  of  this  subject  of 
settlement,  he  had  urged  his  client  to  stand  firm 
against  any  more  favourable  conditions  than  those 
already  proposed,  especially  those  concerning  the 
possession  of  the  children. 

"  For,"  as  he  remarks  in  a  letter  to  George  Norton's 
solicitor  on  this  subject,  "  I  feel  confident  that  no  court 
of  equity  would  ever  enforce  her  having  access  to  them 
as  long  as  Mr.  Norton  is  alive  and  forbids  it;  and  my 
advice  to  Mr.  Norton  is  to  resist  most  strenuously 
every  attempt  of  the  kind." 

There  is  another  letter  from  Sir  John  Bayley  stating 
119 


120  THE   ENGLISH   LAW  [chap,  x 

the  conditions   on   which   he  enters   upon    his    new 
duty  : 

"  Some  time  in  the  autumn  of  1837,  I>  at  Mr.  Norton's 
own  earnest  solicitation,  took  upon  myself  the  arduous 
and  thankless  task  of  arbitrator,  providing  that  Mrs. 
Norton  would  permit  me  to  act  in  that  capacity  on  her 
behalf.  I  did  not  expect  that  she  would  ever  consent  to 
do  this,  from  the  position  I  had  held  as  counsel  for  her 
husband,  and  the  impression  she  necessarily  must  have 
entertained  that  I  was  prejudiced  against  her.  To  her 
honour  and  credit,  however,  she  at  once  acceded  to 
Mr.  Norton's  side  of  the  request.  I  received  from  both 
her  and  her  husband  written  assurances  that  both  would 
abide  by  my  decision  whatever  it  might  be ;  and  on 
these  terms  I  entered  on  my  difficult  task." 

He  came,  and  at  his  first  interview  with  her  found 
occasion  to  change  his  preconceived  opinion  to  one 
much  more  favourable. 

11  My  husband,"  said  Mrs.  Norton  many  years  later, 
11  is  fond  of  paying  me  the  melancholy  compliment 
that  to  my  personal  charms,  and  not  to  the  justice  of 
my  cause,  I  owed  it  that  all  concerned  in  these 
wretched  affairs  took  my  part  against  him  as  soon  as 
they  had  an  explanation  with  me.  Now,  it  would 
certainly  have  been  strictly  probable  that  any  man, 
especially  a  man  of  Sir  John  Bayley's  nature — blunt, 
kindly,  and  vehement— would,  on  finding,  instead  of 
the  painted  wanton  he  expected  to  find,  prepared  to 
struggle  for  her  rights  and  her  interests,  a  miserable, 
sobbing,  worn-out  young  woman,  appealing  to  him 
for  nothing  but  the  mercy  of  getting  back  her  children 
(those  dear  children,  the  loss  of  whose  pattering  steps 
and  sweet,  occasional  voices  made  the  silence  of  her 
new  home  intolerable  as  the  anguish  of  death) ;  I  say 
it  is  conceivable  that  being  but  a  man,  and  not  the 
angel  of  justice,  he  might  have  leaned  unduly  and  com- 
passionately to  the  person  whose  bitter  grief  and 
single  simple  stipulation  came  on  him  as  a  surprise ; 
and  that  so  he  might  not  have  dealt  as  impartially  as 
good  faith  with  Mr.  Norton  required." 


1 837]  SIR  JOHN   BAYLEY  12 1 

She  goes  on,  however,  with  characteristic  vehemence, 
to  prove  that  it  was  not  so ;  that  Sir  John  Bayley's 
consideration  for  her  was  to  be  attributed  not  to  pity, 
not  to  friendship,  but  to  mere  justice ;  but  perhaps  a 
more  satisfactory  evidence  in  this  respect  is  a  letter 
from  Sir  John  Bayley  himself,  which  appeared  some 
years  later  in  the  Times  in  answer  to  an  accusation  ot 
bad  faith  against  him  by  his  former  client. 

"  I  found  Mrs.  Norton  anxious  only  on  one  point, 
and  nearly  heart-broken  about  it ;  namely,  the  restora- 
tion of  her  children.  She  treated  her  pecuniary  affairs 
as  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference,  and  left  me  to 
arrange  them  with  Mr.  Norton  as  I  thought  fit.  I 
found  her  husband,  on  the  contrary,  anxious  only 
about  the  pecuniary  part  of  the  arrangement,  and  so 
obviously  making  the  love  of  the  mother  for  her 
offspring  a  means  of  barter  and  bargain,  that  I  wrote 
to  him  1  could  be  no  party  to  any  arrangement  which 
made  money  the  price  of  Mrs.  Norton's  fair  and 
honourable  access  to  her  children.  I  found  his  history 
of  her  expenses  and  extravagance  to  be  untrue.  I 
found,  under  Mr.  Norton's  own  handwriting,  con- 
fessions of  the  grossest  personal  violence  towards  his 
wife.  I  wrote  to  him  to  say  that,  in  spite  of  these 
injuries,  I  found  Mrs.  Norton  '  reasonable,'  '  tractable,' 
'very  forbearing  indeed,  in  her  expressions  towards 
him,'  anxious  to  satisfy  him  '  for  the  children's  sake  ' ; 
writing  to  me  instead  of  abusing  him,  that  she  desired 
1  heartily,  vainly,  and  sorrowfully,  to  be  at  peace  with 
her  children's  father.'  I  found  that  the  taking  away 
of  these  children  had  been  the  real  cause  of  the 
quarrel,  and  that,  not  only  Mr.  Norton  threw  the 
blame  of  the  subsequent  trial  on  his  advisors  and 
declared  that  the  trial  had  been  brought  on  against 
his  judgment,  but  that  one  of  his  angriest  grounds  of 
complaint  against  his  wife  was  that  she  had  said  that 
she  never  would  return  to  him.  I  read  with  amazement 
the  series  of  letters  which  Mr.  Norton  had  previously 
addressed  to  his  wife,  and  in  which  he  signs  himself 
1  Greenacre.'     I  showed  these  letters  to  Lord  Wynford.1 

1  ATory  peer,  George  Norton's  former  guardian.  Present  at  the  trial 
of  Lord  Melbourne,  and  suspected  of  having  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
collecting  the  evidence  on  which  the  prosecution  of  that  nobleman  rested. 

16 


122  THE   ENGLISH   LAW  [chap,  x 

I  said  if  Mrs.  Norton  had  been  my  sister  I  would 
have  made  them  public;  and  I  consider  she  showed 
forbearance  and  consideration  in  not  making  them 
public.  Mr.  Norton  admitted  to  me  his  firm  belief 
of  his  wife's  innocence  of  the  charge  he  had  brought 
against  her  and  Lord  Melbourne;  and  these  letters 
of  his  expressly  exculpated  her  from  blame,  and 
endearingly  entreated  her  to  return  and  live  with 
him  again.  I  then  changed  my  opinion.  I  thought 
Mr.  Norton  had  done  his  wife  the  most  cruel  injury 
a  man  could  inflict,  and  that  he  was  bound  to  make 
every  sacrifice  and  reparation  in  his  power.  I  saw 
no  earthly  reason  why  her  children  should  be  with- 
held from  her,  and  required  him  to  write  immediately 
to  Scotland,  where  the  children  then  were,  to  have  them 
sent  to  London  forthwith.  In  my  presence  and  at  my 
direction  he  wrote  a  letter  to  that  effect  and  sealed  it. 
I  posted  it  myself,  and  thought  all  was  settled,  as  the 
sole  stipulation  made  by  Mrs.  Norton  was  the  return 
of  her  children  ;  but  Mr.  Norton  was  base  enough  to 
write  a  second  letter,  unknown  to  me,  to  forbid  their 
coming ;  and  come  they  did  not.  As  soon  as  I 
discovered  this  act  of  treachery  and  breach  of  faith, 
I  threw  up-my  office  as  mediator.  I  remonstrated  in 
severe  terms  with  Mr.  Norton,  and  my  intercourse 
with  him  ceased. 

11  I  deem  it,  however,  the  simplest  justice  to  Mrs. 
Norton  to  say  that  I  found  her  frank  and  straight- 
forward throughout,  acting  strictly  up  to  this  sentence 
in  her  first  letter  to  me,  '  Heartily,  and  as  God  is  my 
judge,  I  desire  to  make  what  peace  is  possible  between 
me  and  my  husband,  in  spite  of  the  past.'  She  left  her 
interests  entirely  in  my  hands ;  threw  no  obstacle  in 
my  path,  and  never  once  swerved  from  the  promise  to 
abide  by  whatever  terms  I  should  lay  down.  With 
Mr.  Norton  (though  he  had  appointed  me  to  act)  I 
found  the  exact  reverse.  He  abused  his  wife  and  his 
wife's  family ;  he  shuffled  about  the  misstatements  he 
could  not  deny ;  he  would  be  bound  neither  by  his 
verbal  promise  nor  his  written  pledge ;  and  after  a 
correspondence,  begun  in  November,  which  did  not 
end  till  January,  all  effort  at  arrangement  was 
given  up. 

"  The  question  of  Mrs.  Norton's  allowance  was  not 


1837-8]  MR.   NORTON   AND   HIS  WIFE'S   DEBTS       123 

entered  upon,  as  my  interference  terminated  at  this 
point." 

To  complete  this  part  of  the  story,  Mr.  Norton 
continued  to  withhold  from  his  wife  any  allowance  for 
support  while  she  continued  to  live  separated  from 
him,  until  the  summer  of  1838,  when  certain  creditors 
whom  he  would  not,  and  she  could  not  pay,  decided  to 
carry  the  matter  into  the  common  courts  and  sue 
George  Norton  for  what  his  wife  owed  them ;  for  the 
same  law  which  took  away  a  woman's  independent 
existence  on  her  marriage  gave  her  at  least  this 
advantage.  Being  legally  non-existent,  no  one  could 
sue  her  for  any  debt  she  might  contract  with  trusting 
tradespeople  ;  nor  had  her  creditors  any  legal  means  of 
recovering  directly  from  her.  Her  husband  was,  how- 
ever, liable  for  her  debts,  if  it  could  be  proved  that  he 
had  left  her  without  adequate  means  of  support,  or 
that  she  had  refused  to  live  with  him. 

George  Norton,  being  himself  a  lawyer,  was  per- 
fectly aware  of  the  weakness  of  his  position  before 
the  law.  It  was  for  this  reason  he  was  so  anxious  to 
force  his  wife  into  acceptance  of  the  sum  he  was 
willing  to  give  her,  which,  by  the  way,  he  always 
made  dependent  on  the  condition  that  he  should  be  no 
longer  liable  for  her  debts,  whether  contracted  in  the 
past  or  in  time  to  come.  The  clause  including  the  past 
was  as  important  as  the  condition  about  the  future ; 
for  in  those  days  accounts  might  run  on  without  a 
settlement  for  a  dozen  years  or  more.  In  fact,  prompt 
payment,  even  by  rich  people,  was  rather  the  exception 
than  the  rule,  and  tradespeople  were  accustomed  to  get 
what  they  could,  when  they  could,  and  present  a  bill 
at  the  time  when  it  was  most  likely  to  be  acceptable, 
rather  than  at  the  time  it  was  due. 

As  long  as  there  was  no  legal  arrangement  of 
separation  between  George  Norton  and  his  wife,  he 
was  always  subject  to  this  inconvenience  from  his 
wife's  creditors,  and  always  struggling  to  evade  it, 


I24  THE   ENGLISH   LAW  [chap,  x 

even  to  the  extent  of  advertising  her  in  the  public 
papers,  which  he  did  three  separate  times  :  immediately 
after  she  left  him,  and  again  in  the  summer  of  1837, 
when  fresh  disagreement  had  put  a  stop  to  the  half- 
concluded  reconciliation  between  them,  and  again  in 
May  1838  : 

"Whereas  on  March  30,  1836,  my  wife,  Caroline 
Elizabeth  Sarah,  left  me,  her  family,  and  home,  and 
hath  from  thenceforth  continued  to  live  separate  and 
apart  from  me,"  etc. 

Hayward  remarks  in  a  letter  to  his  sister,  May  23, 


11  You  have  seen,  I  suppose,  Norton's  advertisement 
that  his  wife  is  not  to  be  trusted  :  a  useless  insult, 
as  he  would  not  be  liable  if  he  made  her  a  proper 
allowance." 

A  gratuitous  insult,  one  would  think,  for  he  had 
been  assured  by  his  lawyers  that  such  a  notice  was 
perfectly  useless  from  a  legal  point  of  view.  We  can 
understand  the  complications  in  Mrs.  Norton's  position 
better  when  we  learn  that  one  of  the  bills  she  refused 
to  pay  was  for  jewellery,  an  account  extending  from  1833 
to  1837,  and  for  articles  which  were  at  that  moment 
in  her  husband's  possession.  This  and  several  smaller 
suits  were  settled  out  of  court,  but  one  suit  did  come 
up  for  a  public  hearing. 

It  was  a  bill  for  £142,  which  had  been  running  for 
about  a  year,  from  March  1837  to  January  1838,  at  a 
livery  stable  where  she  had  been  in  the  habit  of  hiring 
cabs  and  horses  before  and  after  her  separation  from 
her  husband.  The  particular  expense  which  made  the 
bill  so  large,  however,  was  for  a  small  phaeton,  which 
she  used  when  driving  with  her  three  little  boys  for 
the  few  weeks  in  the  summer  when  she  was  per- 
mitted to  see  them  during  her  partial  reconciliation 
with  her  husband. 


1838]  SUIT   BEFORE  LORD  ABINGER  125 

The  case  was  tried  before  Lord  Abinger,  a  personal 
friend  of  Lord  Wynford.  Theoretically,  of  course, 
Mrs.  Norton  was  not  a  party  to  the  suit,  and  there- 
fore not  involved  in  the  evidence ;  but  as  the  validity 
of  the  creditor's  claims  depended  on  the  relations 
in  which  husband  and  wife  stood  while  the  debt  was 
being  contracted,  a  certain  amount  of  very  personal 
evidence  was  brought  into  court. 

Indeed,  there  seems  to  have  been  an  effort  on  the 
part  of  some  of  Mrs.  Norton's  advisers  to  use  this 
trial  as  an  opportunity  for  clearing  her  name,  which 
that  earlier  action  against  Lord  Melbourne  had  by 
no  means  afforded.  For  this  purpose  Sir  John 
Bayley,  called  as  a  witness  by  the  creditor,  made 
repeated  efforts  to  get  George  Norton's  own  corre- 
spondence with  his  wife  in  1837  brought  into  evidence, 
with  its  declarations  of  his  (Mr.  Norton's)  entire  belief 
of  his  wife's  innocence.  But  the  lawyer  for  the  defence, 
Sir  Fitzroy  Kelly,  was  always  successful  in  keeping  it 
out,  on  one  technicality  after  another. 

Lord  Abinger  also  took  occasion  in  his  summing-up 
to  reproach  this  same  vehement  gentleman,  Sir  John 
Bayley,  for  even  trying  to  introduce  information,  which 
he  could  only  have  obtained  as  George  Norton's  legal 
adviser  and  the  arbitrator  in  his  affairs  with  his  wife. 
Mrs.  Norton  was  also  indirectly  criticised  as  having 
so  far  identified  herself  with  the  case  against  her 
husband  as  to  have  furnished  the  plaintiff  with  private 
letters  and  papers  which  went  far  to  prove  George 
Norton's  liability  for  her  debts.  She  certainly  did 
furnish  such  papers,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  why 
she  should  be  blamed  for  doing  so,  since  it  was  the 
only  way  the  law  allowed  her  for  getting  her  own 
difficulties  decided.  And  the  fact  that  she  was  so 
blamed  added  only  another  exasperation  to  a  situa- 
tion already  sufficiently  painful.  She  angrily  resolved 
to  justify  herself  by  publishing  the  whole  account  of 
her  case  from  the  beginning,  including  the  evidence 
suppressed  by  Lord  Abinger,  and  was  restrained  from 


i26  THE  ENGLISH   LAW  [chap,  x 

so  doing  only  by  the  entreaty  of  Lord  Melbourne,  for 
reasons  best  given  in  her  own  words : 

11  It  so  happened  that  this  petty  cause — pleaded  by 
Sir  Fitzroy  Kelly  and  decided  by  Lord  Abinger,  in 
which  nothing  more  important  than  a  woman's  fame 
and  a  woman's  interests  were  at  stake — was  tried  at 
the  exact  moment  (June  1838)  when,  in  the  first  year 
of  a  young  queen's  reign,  the  Whig  Government  was 
overwhelmed  with  business  even  more  troublesome 
than  that  which  the  cares  of  office  usually  involve. 
What  was  my  poor  destiny  in  a  session  in  which  a 
new  coinage  and  a  coronation,  the  revolts  in  Canada, 
the  attempt  to  repeal  the  Corn  Laws,  the  conduct  of 
O'Connell,  the  King  of  Hanover's  claim  for  his  English 
income,  the  Irish  Church  Bill,  the  first  general  arrange- 
ments of  mails  by  railroad,  the  visit  of  Marshal  Soult, 
the  creation  of  a  new  batch  of  Peers,  the  passing  of  the 
Irish  Poor  Law,  and  a  hundred  other  subjects  of  varying 
importance,  employed  Lord  Melbourne's  attention  ? 
What  could  my  sobbing,  moaning,  and  complaining 
be  but  a  bore  to  this  man  who  was  not  my  lover? 
What  could  my  passionate  printed  justification  be 
but  a  plague  and  embarrassment  to  him,  already 
justified  and  on  the  pinnacle  of  fortune  ?  Let  no 
one  say  Lord  Melbourne's  family  should  not  hold 
me  in  kind  remembrance  :  for  then,  young,  childless, 
defamed,  sorrowful,  and  rash,  there  never  was  the  day 
that  I  rebelled  against  his  advice  or  gave  him  annoyance 
that  I  could  possibly  avoid.  I  did  not  even  persist : 
'This  can  only  be  a  temporary  embarrassment  by 
revival  of  painful  gossip  to  you  ;  it  is  my  life,  my 
future,  the  strongest  temptation  of  my  heart  to  justify 
myself.' 

"  I  listened  then,  as  at  other  times,  to  the  ever-ready 
argument  that  I  would  be  justified  without  these 
means  ;  that  they  would  be  beyond  measure  vexatious 
and  embarrassing  to  him  ;  that  I  might  '  rest  assured ' 
that  no  patience  I  showed  would  be  forgotten,  either 
by  him  or  those  above  him.  I  gave  up  what  I  had 
prepared." 

She  responded,  as  she  always  did,  as  far  as  was  in 
the  power  of  that  impulsive,  imprudent  nature,  to  an 


1838]  LORD  MELBOURNE  AND  THE  QUEEN  127 
appeal  to  generosity  or  affection,  though  this  par- 
ticular appeal  was  at  a  time  when  the  old  friendship 
it  acknowledged  had  come  to  be  a  very  barren  thing. 
For  the  death  of  William  IV.  and  the  accession  of  a 
young,  inexperienced  woman  to  the  throne  of  Great 
Britain  had  wonderfully  changed  the  position  of  the 
once  unpopular  Prime  Minister,  and  Lord  Melbourne's 
absorption  in  his  new  duties  was  the  general  talk  of 
the  hour. 

It  was  not  only  a  natural  zeal  to  acquit  himself  well 
in  a  difficult  and  delicate  situation,  but  a  very  real  and 
close  friendship  which  had  sprung  up  between  the 
girl  of  seventeen  and  the  gallant  old  statesman  of 
fifty-eight.     To  quote  Charles  Greville  on  the  subject : 

"  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  passionately  fond  of  her  [the 
Queen],  as  he  might  be  of  his  daughter,  if  he  had  one, 
and  the  more  because  he  is  a  man  with  a  capacity  for 
loving  without  having  anything  in  the  world  to  love." 

Nor  was  this  affection  in  any  degree  one-sided. 
The  Queen  herself  admired  and  loved  and  trusted 
the  man  with  whom  she  was  brought  into  such 
continual  intercourse. 

"  She  really  has  nothing  to  do  with  anybody  but 
Melbourne,"  Greville  goes  on ;  "  and  with  him  she 
passes  more  hours  than  any  two  people  in  any  relation 
of  life  perhaps  ever  do  pass  together.  At  eleven  or 
twelve  every  morning  he  comes  to  her  and  stays  an  hour. 
At  two  she  rides,  Melbourne  always  at  her  left  hand,  and 
the  equerry-in-waiting  on  her  right.  She  rides  for 
two  hours  along  the  road,  for  the  greater  time  at 
full  gallop.  Dinner  at  7.30,  but  she  seldom  appears 
till  eight.  Let  who  will  be  there,  Melbourne  always  sits 
next  her,  and  evidently  by  arrangement,  because  he 
always  takes  in  the  lady-in-waiting,  who  must  sit  next 
but  one  to  the  Queen.  In  the  drawing-room  the  Queen 
sits  at  a  large  round  table,  her  guests  around  it,  and 
Melbourne  always  in  a  chair  at  her  left,  remaining 
there  without  moving  while  two  mortal   hours   are 


128  ACCESSION   OF  QUEEN   VICTORIA    [chap,  x 

consumed   in    such    conversation    as    can    be   tound, 
which  appears,  and  really  is,  very  uphill  work. 

"But  interesting  as  his  position  is,  and  flattered, 
gratified,  and  touched  as  he  must  be  by  the  confiding 
devotion  with  which  she  places  herself  in  his  hands, 
it  is  still  marvellous  that  he  should  be  able  to  over- 
come the  force  of  habit  so  completely  as  to  endure  the 
life  he  leads.  Month  after  month  he  remains  at  the 
Castle,  submitting  to  the  daily  routine.  Of  all  men 
he  appeared  to  be  the  least  likely  to  be  broken  into 
the  trammels  of  a  court,  and  never  was  there  such  a 
revolution  seen  in  anybody's  occupations  and  habits. 
Instead  of  indolently  sprawling  in  all  the  attitudes  of 
luxurious  ease,  he  is  always  sitting  bolt  upright ;  his 
free-and-easy  language,  interlarded  with  damns,  is 
carefully  guarded  and  regulated  with  the  strictest 
propriety,  and  he  has  exchanged  the  good  talk  of 
Holland  House  for  the  trivial,  laboured,  and  wearisome 
inanities  of  the  Royal  circle." 


All  those  closely  connected  with  Lord  Melbourne, 
and  accustomed  to  count  on  his  society,  must  have 
lost  by  this  readjustment  of  all  his  habits  around  a 
new  centre  ;  but  the  friend  whose  old  relations  with 
him  most  resembled  the  new  may  be  supposed  to  have 
lost  the  most.  Indeed,  the  surprise  which  Greville 
shows  at  seeing  his  old  acquaintance  so  changed  and 
tamed  to  the  dull  conventions  of  Windsor  must  have 
been  stronger  still  in  Mrs.  Norton,  as  in  any  other 
woman  before  or  after  her,  when  she  sees  the  man 
she  was  so  proud  to  have  held  by  the  charms  of  her 
conversation  so  easily  satisfied  with  so  much  less. 

It  must  also  have  been  a  strange  experience  for  her 
to  find  the  same  quality  of  friendship  which  had  met 
with  such  contemptuous  disbelief  or  suspicion  in  her 
own  case,  so  justly  and  fairly  regarded  when  seen  in 
a  royal  setting ;  and  the  man  whose  name  had  been 
coupled  so  lately  with  hers,  in  a  very  pillory  of  shame, 
admitted  to  be  the  closest  and  most  honoured  adviser 
of  a  pure  young  girl,  while  she  herself  was  not  received 
at  Court  again,  by  Lord  Melbourne's  own  advice,  as 


1838]  SUBMISSION  129 

long  as  the  Queen  remained  unmarried.  There  were 
times  when  the  cruel  contrasts  in  it  all  made  her  break 
out  into  a  sort  of  cry : 

"  Why  am  I  hunted  and  haunted  through  life  with  a 
scandal  involving  two  persons,  but  seemingly  admitting 
of  but  one  acquittal  ?  " 

On  the  whole,  however,  she  submitted  to  the  obvious 
necessity  of  a  woman  to  bear,  in  matters  like  this, 
the  greater  share  of  blame.  She  submitted  to  Lord 
Melbourne's  request  that  she  would  make  no  public 
attempt  to  clear  her  name  of  the  scandals  which  still 
besmirched  it.  On  one  point  alone  she  refused  to 
remain  passive.  She  knew  it  was  the  law  of  England 
which  had  taken  her  children  from  her.  Very  well 
then ;  that  law  must  be  changed,  or  if  that  was 
beyond  her  power,  at  least  known  through  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  land  in  its  whole  iniquity. 


17 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    INFANT   CUSTODY   BILL 

The  first  resource  of  a  woman  like  Caroline  Norton, 
suffering  under  what  she  felt  to  be  an  intolerable 
wrong  arising  from  an  anomaly  of  conditions  which 
cried  out  for  investigation  and  reform,  was  her  pen. 
And,  indeed,  it  was  to  her  pen  that  she  instantly 
turned,  "  looking  to  it "  (I  quote  her  own  words) 
11  to  extricate  me,  as  the  soldier  trusts  to  his  sword  to 
cut  his  way  through." 

Even  in  the  autumn  of  1836,  immediately  after  her 
separation  from  her  husband,  while  she  was  bargaining 
with  Murray  for  the  sale  of  her  poem,  "A  Voice  from 
the  Factories,"  she  was  already  at  work  on  a  prose 
pamphlet  on  the  subject  always  closest  to  her  heart, 
"  The  Natural  Claim  of  a  Mother  to  the  Custody  of 
her  Children  as  affected  by  the  Common  Law  Right 
of  the  Father."  She  was  not  so  utterly  unequipped 
as  most  women  for  work  of  this  semi-legal  character, 
for  she  had  often  amused  herself  in  the  past  among 
her  husband's  law-books,  and  drawn  from  them 
enough  at  least  to  show  a  woman  as  clever  as  she 
was  the  way  to  turn  the  slight  taste  she  always 
had  for  such  subjects  into  a  really  serious  study  and 
support. 

The  real  difficulty  lay  in  getting  any  one  to  publish 
what  she  might  produce  in  this  new  departure.  All 
her  usual  outlets,  the  pages  of  annuals  and  fashionable 
130 


1836]  LETTERS  TO   MURRAY  131 

journals,  were  of  course  completely  useless  to  her  for 
such  a  purpose  as  she  contemplated,  and  it  was  equally 
impossible  to  get  any  publisher  to  handle  what  might 
so  easily  in  her  hands  become  distinctly  compromising 
matter. 

She  first  applied  to  Murray,  who  consented  at  least 
to  read  and  criticise  her  manuscript,  though  without 
much  encouragement  otherwise.  To  Murray  she 
accordingly  sent  it  with  the  following  letter: 

"  Frampton  COURT,  December. 

"  Dear  Sir, 

"  I  very  hastily  enclose  my  '  Observations,  etc.,' 
to  you.  The  cases  are  wanting  in  the  middle,  because 
I  have  been  so  ill.  I  have  not  yet  finished  copying 
them  familiarly  from  the  legal  reports ;  but  you  have 
all  the  work  which  needs  to  show  you  the  style  and 
intention.  My  brother  Charles  forwarded  me  your 
answer,  which  is  the  reason  I  send  it  to  you  thus 
imperfect,  as  it  saves  me  time  in  case  you  still  think  it 
a  publication  to  decline  undertaking  for  me.  I  shall 
then  print  it  at  my  own  expense  at  Ridgway's,  or  try 
my  old  friends  Saunders  &  Otley,  as  I  am  obstinate 
in  determining  it  shall  appear.  I  will  thankfully 
receive  any  suggestions  for  alterations  or  omissions 
you  think  ought  to  be  made.  Pray  show  it  to  no 
one.  1  have  told  Mr.  Hayward  I  will  send  it  to 
him  in  proof;  I  have  also,  on  his  advice,  omitted 
any  personal  attack  on  Lord  Wynford,  which  I  think 
I  might  justly  and  safely  have  done.  However,  I 
have  enemies  enough  and  bitter  enough  already,  so 
it  is  as  well. 

"  Will  you  return  it  soon  with  your  opinion  ?  Will 
you  tell  me  the  probable  expense  of  printing  it,  if  I 
do  that,  and  any  other  thing  which  your  experience 
suggests  on  the  subject  ? " 

Mr.  Murray's  opinion  was  so  full  of  caution  and 
criticism  that  she  hastily  resolved,  rather  than  submit 
to  the  pruning  that  he  suggested,  to  have  the  tract 
printed  and  circulated  privately  at  her  own  ex- 
pense. 


i32  THE   INFANT   CUSTODY   BILL       [chap,  xi 

She  wrote  to  him  accordingly  as  follows  : 

"Maiden  Bradley,  Mere,  Wilts" 

[Lord  Seymour's  place  in  Wiltshire], 

"  Dece7>iber  24. 

II  Dear  Sir, 

"  I  have  this  moment  received  your  letter,  for 
which  and  for  the  hints  contained  in  it  many  thanks. 
I  wrote  to  my  brother  to  call  and  know  your  decision ; 
I  have  written  to  him  again  to-day.  What  I  will  do  is 
this:  I  will  make  Ridgway  print  100  copies  for 
private  (!)  circulation  ;  and  then  I  will  take  a  little 
time  and  a  good  deal  of  counsel  as  to  what  shall  be 
struck  out  in  publishing  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Hayward 
said  he  would  '  support  it '  in  his  January  magazine  j1 
but  he  has  not  yet  seen  it.  I  will  set  it  up  in  slips  and 
send  it  so  to  him.  I  can  then  send  the  printed  copies 
to  friends  and  members  of  Parliament ;  I  do  not  think 
I  am  an  obstinate,  and  certainly  not  a  touchy,  author, 
as  regards  mere  authorship — that  is,  I  am  not  mortified 
or  disturbed  at  passages  being  objected  to  and  cut  out, 
but  I  shall  be  beyond  measure  vexed  and  disappointed 
if  the  fear  of  prosecution  prevents  its  being  published. 
Can  no  one  be  made  responsible  for  it  instead  of  the 
publisher — one  of  my  brothers,  for  instance  ?  Am  I 
not  responsible  ?  Tell  me  this,  or  inform  Charles  if 
you  find  time  to  see  him  ;  and  let  the  MS.  come  to  me 
through  Downing  Street,  with  '  Immediate  '  upon  it. 
I  will  not  trouble  you  farther  on  the  subject  at  present. 
I  consider  the  publication  in  some  way,  modified  or 
not,  as  a  necessity,  and  I  should  not  care  if  my 
pamphlet  were  forgot  the  next  day,  if  some  one  would 
follow  better  able  to  treat  it,  and  who  would  treat  it 
with  the  same  views." 

A  more  intimate  history  of  this  pamphlet,  and  of 

the  purpose  for  which  she  was  especially  preparing  it, 

is  found  in  the  following  correspondence  with  Mrs. 

Shelley,     already    published    by    Fitzgerald     in     his 

"Lives  of  the  Sheridans": 

"Maiden  Bradley. 

II I  have  suffered,  and  do  suffer  so  much  mentally 
and  bodily,  that  I  regret  I  ever  allowed  the  children 

1  The  Quarterly  Review  of  Jurisprudence,  edited  for  many  years  by 
Abraham  Hayward. 


1837]  LETTERS  TO   MRS.   SHELLEY  133 

to  go  out  of  my  reach  :  though  taking  them  would 
have  entailed  the  necessity  of  leaving  all  my  own 
people  and  living  abroad.  I  am  about  to  publish 
'Observations  on  the  Natural  Claim  of  a  Mother  to 
the  Custody  of  her  Young  Children,'  in  which,  among 
other  cases,  I  have  given  my  own.  I  think  there  is 
too  much  fear  of  publicity  about  women  ;  it  is  reckoned 
such  a  crime  to  be  accused,  and  such  a  disgrace,  that 
they  wish  nothing  better  than  to  hide  themselves  and 
say  no  more  about  it.  I  think  it  is  high  time  that  law 
was  known,  at  least  among  the  weaker  sex,  which 
gives  no  right  to  one's  own  flesh  and  blood  ;  and  I 
shall  follow  that  with  'A  Comparison  between  the 
English  and  Scotch  Law  of  Divorce,'  as  affecting  the 
possibility  of  defence  on  the  part  of  woman. 

"  This  occupies  my  restlessness,  which  is  very  great, 
and  of  that  painful,  hopeless  sort,  with  no  aim  or 
object." 

"  Maiden  Bradley,  January  5. 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Shelley, 

"  I  have  been  a  very  wretch  for  rheumatism  in 
the  head  and  weakness  in  the  eyes,  or  would  sooner 
have  answered  your  kind  and  welcome  letter. 

"  I  finished  my  '  Observations  on  the  Natural  Claim 
of  the  Mother 'last  week,  and  it  is  now  printing  at 
Ridgway's.  There  is  so  much  dispute  and  worry 
about  prosecutable  passages,  that  I  have  ordered  them 
to  print  now  500  copies  as  for  private  (!)  circulation  ; 
and  when  I  am  in  town,  which  will  be  at  the  end  of 
this  month,  I  can  see  to  the  publication  of  it.  I  also 
intend,  if  possible  (and  what  is  there  not  possible  in 
this  world  ?),  to  have  a  discussion  of  the  alteration  of 
that  law  in  Parliament  this  session.  I  am  very  im- 
patient to  send  you  the  pamphlet.  It  was  a  great 
triumph  to  me  to  see  how  alike  what  I  had  written 
and  part  of  your  letter  was  (what  very  awkward 
prose !).  I  improved  the  passage  materially  by  your 
observation  on  what  was  permitted  to  women,  or 
rather  excused  in  women,  when  they  receive  any  rude- 
ness ;  but  as  you  are  to  have  the  trouble  of  reading  it 
in  print,  I  will  not  say  more  about  it  now. 

"  Perhaps  you  will  not  think  I  have  gone  far  enough  ; 
I  thought  it  best  to  have  the  appearance  of  calmness 
and  fairness,  and  I  struck  out  many  passages  which 


i34  THE   INFANT   CUSTODY   BILL        [chap,  xi 

my  sister,  Georgiana  Seymour,  called  my  'callow- 
nestling  bits.'  I  insisted  on  the  rule,  already  existent 
for  illegitimate  children,  that  children  under  the  age  of 
seven  should  belong,  at  all  events,  to  the  mother;  and 
after  that,  access  dependent,  not  on  the  father,  but  on 
the  Court  of  Chancery.  God  knows  that  if  the  Court 
judged  the  conduct  of  women  by  the  same  laws  as 
they  do  that  of  men,  and  pronounced  as  indulgent 
opinions,  we  should  be  happily  protected.  Conceive, 
in  one  of  the  cases  I  had  from  the  Law  Reports,  the 
mother  being  obliged  to  leave  her  child  in  the  hands 
of  the  husband's  mistress,  and  the  Court  saying  it  had 
no  power  to  interfere.  Was  there  ever  such  a  per- 
version of  natural  rights  ?  And  yet  those  very  courts 
assume  they  have  a  power  in  case  of  religious  or 
political  opinion  on  the  father's  part.  The  fact  is,  in 
this  commercial  country,  as  it  is  called,  the  rights  of 
property  are  the  only  rights  really  and  efficiently  pro- 
tected ;  and  the  consideration  of  property  the  only  one 
which  weighs  with  the  decision  made  in  a  court  of 
justice.  I  do  not  mean  that  they  decide  unjustly  in 
favour  of  the  rich,  but  where  there  is  no  property  law 
fails— as  if  it  was  for  that,  and  not  for  men,  that  laws 
were  made.  The  great  obstacle,  in  all  the  cases  I  have 
looked  through,  to  the  woman  obtaining  her  child,  or 
even  obtaining  that  it  should  be  in  the  hands  of  a  third 
party  as  a  proper  guardian,  has  been  the  want  of  pro- 
perty to  justify  the  interference  of  the  law. 

"  I  also  was  much  struck  and  affected  by  the  simple 
story  conveyed  in  all  Mrs.  Hemans's  l  letters.  I  have 
a  letter  somewhere,  containing  an  account  of  the  boy 
Charles,  which  she  wrote  me  when  I  was  editress  of 
that  magazine,  written  in  a  true  mother's  spirit ;  and, 
indeed,  the  mother  must  be  a  fond  one  who  will  so 
trust  to  the  interest  of  an  utter  stranger  as  to  describe 
and  expatiate  upon  the  qualities  of  some  little  un- 
known. I  never  saw  her;  but  I  think  of  all  people  she 
would  least  have  disappointed  those  who  had  known 
her  first  by  her  writings  ;  there  was  something  German 
in  her  very  soul,  simple,  noble,  and  full  of  a  kindly  and 
soaring  spirit.  As  for  Mr.  Chorley's  portion  of  the 
work,  he  perhaps  felt  that  he  might  be  more  abused 

1  A  Memoir  of  Mrs.  Hemans  had  been  published  in  1836  by 
Chorley. 


1837]  MRS.   HEMANS  135 

for  showing  any  vanity  of  authorship  in  a  task  of  that 
sort,  than  for  being  meagre  in  his  additions. 

"  There  is  also  a  difficulty  in  being  compelled  to 
omit  the  greater  part  of  her  biography,  as  it  is 
necessarily  entwined  with  family  matters.  [After 
dwelling  on  certain  rumours  and  other  matters  of  a 
.private  ldnd,  she  goes  on.]  The  very  vague  manner 
in  which  he  mentions  the  husband  going  to  Italy  for 
his  health,  and  her  remaining  in  England  because  of 
her  literary  avocations,  made  me  almost  smile.  Fancy 
any  woman — and  more  especially  such  a  woman- 
staying  to  print  poetry,  while  her  husband  went  to  die 
in  Italy.  The  thing  is  absurd.  One  would  not  do  it 
even  by  a  husband  one  did  not  love. 

"  Did  you  observe  the  mem.  for  a  poem  ?  The 
sorceress  who  gave  up,  one  by  one,  all  her  gifts  to 
secure  the  love  of  a  mortal,  and  was  abandoned  by 
him  at  last  ?  I  mean  to  seize  it  as  my  inheritance  : 
though  after  that  most  lovely  and  undervalued  creation, 
Guendolen  in  'The  Bridal  of  Triermain,'  anything  of  that 
sort  must  seem  a  copy.  Does  it  not  provoke  you 
sometimes  to  think  how  in  vain  the  gift  of  genius  is 
for  a  woman  ;  how,  so  far  from  binding  her  more  closely 
to  the  admiration  and  love  of  her  fellow-creatures,  it 
does  in  effect  create  that  '  gulf  across  which  no  one 
passes,'  and  all  to  be  forgotten  !  Witness  its  being  im- 
possible to  find  out  when  or  how  Aspasia  died,  who  I 
believe  to  have  been  Pericles's  superior  in  all  things 
except  the  power  to  steer  the  ship  of  which  you  speak. 

"  I  have  been  interrupted  by  letters  which,  by  re- 
calling to  me  all  that  is  real  and  grating  in  my  position, 
and  obliging  me  to  answer  lawyers,  etc.,  cut  short  that 
which  is  pleasant — writing  to  you.  I  will  therefore  only 
add  a  wish  to  know  how  Percy  acquitted  himself  at 
his  Cambridge  dinner;  do  not  mind  his  shyness.  I 
believe  Lord  Melbourne  once  said  of  it  that  '  a  certain 
sort  of  shyness  is  not  only  a  concomitant,  but  a  proof 
of  real  genius.'  That  '  certain  sort  of  shyness  '  I  take 
to  be  sauvagerie. 

[Then  follows  the  passage  already  cited,  p.  12.] 

"  I  think  there  is  a  lingering  touch  of  this  shyness 
in  you,  in  spite  of  the  finest,  frankest,  and  prettiest 
manners  that  ever  took  my  fancy,  and  I  have  felt  it  in 
myself  very  often. 


1 36  THE   INFANT   CUSTODY    BILL       [chap,  xi 

"  With  most  earnest  wishes  that  you  may  be  the 
mother  of  a  celebrated  man,  whose  fame  shall  not 
depend  on  the  few  eager  struggling  years  of  a  restless 
youth,  like  him  too  early  taken  away,  and  with  kind 
but  hurried  good  wishes  for  your  health  and  happiness 
during  the  new  year  now  begun. 

"  Believe  me  ever  yours  truly, 

"  Caroline  Norton." 

On  January  27,  1837,  Mrs.  Shelley,  writing  to 
Trelawny  from  Harrow,  says  : 

"  I  had  a  long  letter  from  Mrs.  Norton.  I  admire 
her  excessively,  and  I  think  I  could  love  her  infinitely, 
but  I  shall  not  be  asked  or  tried,  and  shall  take  very 
good  care  not  to  press  myself.  I  know  what  her 
relations  think." 

Many  people  in  those  days  besides  Caroline 
Norton's  relations — if,  indeed,  these  last  really 
did  think  of  Mrs.  Shelley  as  she  suspected — con- 
sidered the  daughter  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft  and 
Godwin  a  very  perilous  influence  in  the  world.  And, 
indeed,  though  she  was  different  enough  from  the 
dangerous  anarchist  and  social  innovator  so  many 
believed  her,  she  was  yet  sufficiently  imbued  with  the 
vague  poetic  liberalism  of  her  husband  to  be  a  deeply 
sympathetic  companion  to  any  one  suffering  from  the 
cruel  custom  of  society.  And  she  had  always  admired 
Mrs.  Norton,  shrinkingly,  indeed,  with  a  sort  of 
sensitive  alertness  to  possible  snubs  or  hardness. 

There  is  a  pretty  letter  of  hers  written  somewhat 
earlier,  on  this  subject,  to  Trelawny,  which  may  be 
given  here: 

To  Trelawny  from  Mrs.  Shelley 

"  October  12,  1835. 
"  I  do  not  wonder  at  your  not  being  able  to  deny 
yourself  the  pleasure  of  Mrs.  Norton's  society.  I 
never  saw  a  woman  I  thought  so  fascinating.  Had 
I  been  a  man  I  should  certainly  have  fallen  in  love 
with  her  ;  as  a  woman,  ten  years  ago,  I  should  have 
been  spellbound,  and  had  she  taken  the  trouble,  she 


1837]  SERGEANT  TALFOURD  137 

might  have  wound  me  round  her  finger.  Ten  years 
ago  I  was  so  ready  to  give  myself  away,  and  being 
afraid  of  men,  I  was  apt  to  get  '  tousy-mousy '  for 
women  :  experience  and  suffering  have  altered  all  that. 
I  am  more  wrapt  up  in  myself,  my  own  feelings, 
disasters,  and  prospects  for  rercy.  I  am  now  proof, 
as  Hamlet  says,  both  against  man  and  woman. 

"  There  is  something  in  the  pretty  way  in  which 
Mrs.  Norton's  witticisms  glide,  as  it  were,  from  her 
lips  that  is  very  charming;  and  then  her  colour,  which 
is  so  variable — the  eloquent  blood,  which  ebbs  and 
flows,  mounting,  as  she  speaks,  into  her  neck  and 
temples,  and  then  receding  as  fast — it  reminds  me  of 
the  frequent  quotation  of  '  eloquent  blood,'  and  gives 
a  peculiar  attraction  to  her  conversation  ;  not  to  speak 
of  fine  eyes  and  open  brow. 

"  Now  do  not,  in  your  usual  silly  way,  show  her 
what  I  say.  She  is,  despite  all  her  talent  and  sweet- 
ness, a  London  lady.  She  would  guy  me — not,  per- 
haps, to  you  (well  do  I  know  the  London  ton !)  but  to 
every  one  else — in  her  prettiest  way." 

But  sorrow  and  sympathy  brought  those  two  dis- 
similar natures  much  nearer  together  than  Mrs.  Shelley 
in  those  days  would  have  thought  possible. 

Mrs.  Norton's  next  letter  goes  on  with  the  account 
of  her  new  literary  labour. 

"  16,  Green  Street,  Grosvenor  Square, 
"  February  1 . 

"Dear  Mrs.  Shelley, 

"  I  have  been  expecting  to  write  to  you  every 
day  to  send  my  pamphlet.  My  pamphlet  must  still 
follow  my  letter.  There  was  such  a  division  in  my 
family  as  to  what  I  might  and  might  not  do,  and  such 
an  outcry  about  the  indelicacy  of  public  appeal,  that 
I  delayed  the  press,  hoping  to  be  able  to  win  over  my 
people  to  my  views.  To-night  Talfourd  (blessed  be 
his  name  for  that  same,  and  a  crown  of  glory  to  him ! 
as  the  Irish  say)  has  given  notice  of  a  motion  in  the 
House  of  Commons  to  alter  this  law.  I  thought  you 
would  be  glad  to  know  this,  both  for  the  sake  of  the 
sex  (whom  you  have  not  the  clever  woman's  affectation 

18 


1 38  THE   INFANT  CUSTODY   BILL       [chap,  xi 

of  thinking  inferior  to  men)  and  for  me,  whose  first 
glad  feeling  for  many  months  of  struggling  has  been 
the  public  notice  of  an  effort,  at  least,  to  be  made  in 
behalf  of  mothers. 

"  I  do  not  know  Mr.  Talfourd  personally,  but  I 
asked  Mr.  Hayward  (who  seems  a  great  friend  of  his) 
to  request  him  to  undertake  the  task.  I  hardly  hoped 
for  such  prompt  acquiescence ;  but  if  I  had  to  choose 
from  the  whole  House  of  Commons,  I  could  not  choose 
a  man  whose  talent  and  good  feeling  and  weight  with 
the  House  would  give  a  better  or  so  good  a  chance 
of  success. 

"  He  has  the  printed  proof  of  my  pamphlet.  As 
soon  as  another  is  struck  off,  to  correct  the  last  few 
errors,  I  will  send  you  a  tidy  copy;  only,  as  I  have 
now  attained  my  great  object  of  having  it  discussed  in 
Parliament,  and  as  some  of  my  family  are  so  averse 
to  my  writing  on  the  subject,  1  shall  only  give  a  very 
few  copies — one  half-dozen,  perhaps,  out  of  my  own 
family — and  you  will  not  lend  it,  to  oblige  me.  I  am 
afraid  you  were  displeased  at  one  sentence  in  my  last 
letter.  I  think  I  was  misunderstood,  but  I  will  not 
make  awkward  attempts  at  explanations.  Though  I 
believe  you  have  some  doubts  of  my  general  sincerity, 
in  spite  of  my  conviction  that  living  in  the  world  only 
alters  the  manner,  not  the  feelings — I  wish  to  God  it 
did  the  latter,  and  perhaps  I  should  not  be  so  wretched 
just  now.  From  which  'just  now'  I  except  to-day; 
for  to-day  the  sunshine  has  slanted  in  at  the  windows 
of  my  heart,  and  I  look  forward  to  this  motion  of 
Talfourd  with  an  eagerness  I  have  wasted  on  many 
less  worthy  and  less  earnest  hopes. 

"  I  shall  not  write  any  more,  my  hand  and  head 
being  equally  tired  with  letters,  and  two  after  mid- 
night having  just  sounded.  I  hope  you  will  soon  be 
in  town,  and  that  I  shall  see  something  of  you.  I 
hear  you  will  be  nearer  me  by  a  good  deal  than  when 
Belgrave  Place  was  your  dwelling. 

"  I  never  felt  so  fagged  in  my  life. 

"Yours  ever  truly, 

"  Caroline  N." 

Serjeant-at-law  Talfourd,  to  give  him  his  legal 
appellation  at  that  time,  was  a  young  Whig  barrister, 


1837]  TALFOURD'S   MOTION  139 

already  known  in  his  profession  as  one  of  the  junior 
counsel  for  the  defendant  in  the  recent  trial  Norton 
v.  Lord  Melbourne,  and  soon  to  be  known  in  literature 
as  the  author  of  the  poetical  drama  Ion ;  a  man  of  a 
respectable  though  not  distinguished  family  (his  father 
was  a  brewer),  of  an  excellent  reputation  in  his  pro- 
fession and  in  Parliament  (where  he  had  held  a  seat 
since  1835);  less  remarkable,  however,  from  any 
brilliant  or  forensic  quality  than  from  the  zeal  and 
laborious  care  which  he  expended  on  everything  he 
took  in  hand. 

He  was  the  more  ready  to  listen  to  Mrs.  Norton's 
request  that  he  should  take  up  and  carry  her  Bill  for 
her  because  of  his  personal  experience  of  the  working 
of  the  law  as  it  stood,  experience  obtained  as  counsel 
for  the  father  against  the  mother  in  two  cases  of  ex- 
ceptional cruelty  and  injustice  to  the  latter,  both  of 
which  cases  had  been  decided  for  his  client  because, 
as  the  law  stood,  the  Courts  were  powerless  to  do 
otherwise. 

His  Bill,  brought  in  two  months  after  his  notice  of 
the  motion  already  mentioned  in  Mrs.  Norton's  letter 
to  Mrs.  Shelley  (p.  137),  was  printed,  and  its  second 
reading  was  set  for  May  24.  On  May  24,  however,  it 
was  postponed  again  for  two  weeks  ;  and  again  for  two 
weeks  more.  King  William's  death  occurred  in  the 
meantime,  and  on  June  24  Serjeant  Talfourd  rose  again 
to  say  that  he  did  not  intend  to  press  his  measure 
during  that  session;  that  it  was  a  subject  of  great 
delicacy  and  importance,  and  he  himself  was  not 
entirely  satisfied  with  the  working  details  of  the  Bill. 

Possibly  Mrs.  Norton  herself  was  not  unwilling  to 
let  things  drift  a  little  at  this  particular  moment,  for  it 
was  then,  after  the  Bill  had  come  up  for  a  first  reading, 
that  her  husband  made  his  first  unstable  effort  towards 
a  reconciliation,  and  that  she  got  her  children  back 
again,  at  least  for  a  few  weeks.  All  through  May  and 
June  1837  she  had  them  with  her  nearly  every  day. 

So  when    the   Bill  she  had  been  so  passionately 


i4o  THE   INFANT  CUSTODY   BILL       [chap,  xi 

advocating  through  the  earlier  weeks  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary session  was  withdrawn  in  June,  before  its 
second  reading,  some  people  shrugged  their  shoulders, 
and  a  certain  Tory  review  in  summing  up  the  history 
of  the  measure  when  it  was  brought  up  again  a  year 
later  ventured  to  suggest  a  certain  intimate  relation 
between  the  Bill's  temporary  collapse  and  the 
favourable  turn  taken  about  the  same  time  in  the 
"  Norton  negotiations."  Such  suggestion,  implying 
petty  personal  aims  in  what  ought  to  be  a  purely 
public  measure,  was  sure  to  strike  deep  and  leave  a 
poisoned  wound  in  a  person  so  sensitive  and  so  frank 
as  Mrs.  Norton.     For  it  had  its  residuum  of  truth. 

Her  power  over  the  Bill  was  her  personal  influence 
— her  influence  was  strongest  when  her  feeling  was  at 
its  height.  Distracted  between  hope  and  despair  in 
her  renewed  relations  with  her  husband  and  children, 
she  would  have  been  more  or  less  than  human  if 
her  first  enthusiasm  for  this  paper  abstraction  had 
remained  at  the  necessary  heat  for  influencing  others 
to  its  service. 

It  could  hardly  have  been  by  her  intention  that  the 
Bill  languished  and  died  in  the  session  of  1837  without 
ever  coming  to  its  second  reading.  If  it  was  her  fault, 
then,  by  the  same  token,  its  final  success  in  suc- 
ceeding years  must  be  put  entirely  to  her  credit. 

There  was  not  even  a  glimmer  or  hope  of  personal 
happiness  to  distract  her  interest  from  the  same 
measure  when  it  was  brought  up  again  before  the  new 
Parliament  in  the  short  session  at  the  end  of  1837. 
It  came  up  for  a  second  reading  in  May  1838,  and  all 
the  time  it  lay  dormant  in  that  exceptionally  busy 
session,  she  was  making  every  effort  to  interest 
friends  for  it  in  high  places,  and  her  own  pamphlet 
already  printed  early  in  1837  with  its  endless  title, 
"  Observation  on  the  Natural  Claim  of  a  Mother 
to  the  Custody  of  her  Children  as  affected  by  the 
Common  Law  Right  of  the  Father,  illustrated  by  Cases 
of  Peculiar  Hardship,"  was  distributed  among  M.P.'s  to 


1838]  "THE  CASE  OF  THE  HON.  MRS.  NORTON"  141 

influence  their  vote  in  its  favour.  The  pamphlet  must 
once,  therefore,  have  been  easily  attainable.  It  is 
now,  however,  exceedingly  rare.  In  fact,  I  know  of 
only  one  copy,  mentioned  in  the  catalogue  of  the 
library  collected  by  the  late  Lord  Dufferin  in  the 
building  on  his  estate  of  Clandeboye,  called  after  his 
mother,  "  Helen's  Tower." 

Another  little  pamphlet,  "  The  Case  of  the  Hon. 
Mrs.  Norton,"  written  in  the  third  person,  without 
the  author's  name,  but  none  the  less  by  her,  was 
probably  distributed  at  the  same  time  for  the  same 
purpose.  There  is  in  the  Astor  Library  in  New  York 
a  copy  of  this  pamphlet  which  was  once  the  property 
of  Lady  Mary  Fox,  a  daughter  of  William  IV.,  and  a 
personal  friend  of  Mrs.  Norton. 

Not  by  these  means  alone,  but  in  a  hundred  in- 
direct ways,  was  she  able  to  advance  the  Bill  through 
the  Commons. 

We  have!  an  amusing  little  letter  of  advice,  drawn 
evidently  from  her  own  experiences,  to  encourage 
Mrs.  Shelley,  again  struggling  to  win  some  permanent 
annuity  from  her  stepmother,  the  sum  she  had  at 
first  obtained  from  the  King's  bounty  having  been 
withdrawn  at  King  William's  death. 

"  24,  Bolton  Street. 

"Anything  I  can  say  or  do  in  the  matter  you 
may  depend  on  my  saying  and  doing ;  nothing  worries 
me,  except  the  great  uncertainty  of  making  people 
feel  on  these  sorts  of  occasions.  I  think  the  letter  to 
Lord  Melbourne  very  good.  I  think  the  other  a  little 
long.  I  would  begin  direct  to  the  point :  '  As  the 
daughter  of  the  late  Mr.  Godwin,  and  the  person  on 
whom  his  aged  widow  mainly  relies  for  support,  I 
venture  to  address  you  on  the  subject  of  obtaining,' 
etc. 

"  Press  not  on  the  politics  of  Mr.  Godwin  (for  God 
knows  how  much  gratitude  for  that  ever  survives), 
but  on  his  celebrity,  the  widow's  age  and  ill-health, 
and  (if  your  proud  little  spirit  will  bear  it)  on  your 
toils,  for,  after  all,  the  truth  is  that  you,  being  generous, 


i42  THE  INFANT  CUSTODY  BILL       [chap,  xi 

will,  rather  than  see  the  old  creature  starve,  work 
your  brains  and  your  pen  ;  and  you  have  your  son 
and  delicate  health  to  hinder  you  from  having  means 
to  help  her. 

"As  to  petitioning,  no  one  dislikes  begging  more 
than  I  do,  especially  when  one  begs  for  what  seems 
mere  justice ;  but  I  have  long  observed  that  though 
people  will  resist  claims  (however  just)  they  like  to 
do  favours.  Therefore,  when  I  beg  I  am  a  crawling 
lizard,  a  humble  toad,  a  brown  snake  in  cold  weather, 
or  any  other  simile  most  feebly  '  rampante,'  the  reverse 
of  '  rampant,'  which  would  be  the  natural  attitude  for 
petitioning,  but  which  must  be  never  assumed  except 
in  the  poodle  style,  standing  with  one's  paws  bent  to 
catch  the  bits  of  bread  on  one's  nose. 

"Forgive  my  jesting.  Upon  my  honour,  I  feel  sin- 
cerely anxious  for  your  anxiety,  and  sad  enough  on 
my  own  affairs ;  but  Irish  blood  will  dance.  My 
meaning  is,  that  if  one  asks  at  all,  one  should  rather 
think  of  the  person  written  to  than  one's  own  feelings. 
He  is  an  indolent  man — talk  of  your  literary  labours  ; 
a  kind  man — talk  of  her  age  and  infirmities  ;  a  patron 
of  all  genius — talk  of  your  father's  and  your  own  ; 
a  prudent  man— speak  of  the  likelihood  of  the  pension 
being  a  short  grant  (as  you  have  done)  ;  lastly,  he  is  a 
great  man — take  it  all  as  a  personal  favour. 

"As  to  not  apologising  for  the  intrusion,  we  ought 
always  to  kneel  down  and  beg  pardon  for  daring  to 
remind  people  that  we  are  not  so  well  off  as  they  are. 
Not  knowing  whether  these  are  the  letters  or  only 
copies  of  the  letters,  I  have  not  kept  them.  Did  you 
mean  me  to  send  the  one  to  Lord  Melbourne?" 

"  Yours  ever  truly, 
"C.N." 

But  another  letter,  written  more  about  Mrs.  Shelley's 
affairs  than  her  own,  shows  the  more  clearly  the  strain 
of  nerves  and  mind  the  struggle  at  last  imposed 
upon  her. 

"  I  have  so  bad  a  headache,  I  must  lie  down  or 
go  to  bed  instead  of  coming  to  see  you.     About  the 

Eension,    I    would    advise   that    Sir    Lytton    Bulwer 
imself  should   ask    Lord    Melbourne   himself.      All 


1838]  MRS.   GODWIN'S   PENSION  143 

intermediaries  bear  the  same  proportion  of  use  in 
transacting  business  that  fal-lal-la  does  to  the  words 
of  a  song;  and  though  Lord  M.  threatens  that  he  will 
instantly  desire  an  annuity  may  be  bought  for  Mrs. 
Godwin  out  of  the  proceeds  of  '  Devereux  '  and  '  Paul 
Clifford,'  yet  I  think  the  case  not  so  desperate.  He 
will  do  much  more,  being  persuaded  that  it  is  fit  and 
rational  and  right,  than  as  a  favour  to  any  one. 

11  Sir  Lytton  Bulwer  (what  a  pretty  name  it  is)  is  a 
personal  favourite — at  least,  I  have  heard  him  praise 
him,  not  only  for  talents,  which  all  admit,  but  in  a 
friendly,  approving  way :  being  a  man,  and  a  man  of 
some  weight,  I  think  if  he  took  the  trouble  to  write  on 
the  subject  it  would  do  more  than  our  petitioning ;  it 
would  make  it  a  grave  matter  of  business. 

"  I  perceive  no  earthly  obstacle  except  the  old  and 
usual  scruple  that  if  the  rule  is  relaxed,  and  the  con- 
nections 01  men  of  genius  are  to  have  claims,  there  will 
be  no  end  of  pensioning.  I  think  you  will  get  what 
you  want  for  Mrs.  Godwin  nevertheless.  Excuse 
bluntness.    I  am  in  pain ;  and  I  wish  to  be  understood. 

"  I  was  much  disappointed  at  not  getting  what  I 
hoped,  a  completely  definite  answer  to  send  you,  but 
one  must  take  people  as  their  natures  will  let  one,  and 
it  is  the  nature  of  the  petitioned  to  give  indefinite 
answers.  No  one  has  pressed  it  yet  on  Lord 
Melbourne's  attention,  and  he  does  not  know  who  is 
the  great  instrument  expected  to  do  it.  I  am  going  to 
write  to  Sir  L.  B.  myself  on  behalf  of  an  Italian  who 
wants  to  translate  English  novels;  and  I  will  say 
this  to  him,  or  you  can.  I  scrawl  because  I  ache  and 
am  impatient. 

"  Yours  ever, 
"C.  N." 

One  more  letter  of  the  same  series  shows  another 
phase  of  this  acquaintanceship. 

11  You  certainly  are  the  pleasantest  note-writer 
in  the  world,  but  your  conduct  in  money  matters  is 
not  so  praiseworthy.  If  you  insist  on  paying  for  your 
place  in  the  balcony,  well  and  good  :  it  is  ungenteel  to 
refuse  to  be  paid ;  only  I  will  say  frankly  once  for  all 
what  I  feel  about  it.  I  am  conscious  of  being — I 
will  not  say  extravagant,   for  that  implies   habitual 


i44  THE   INFANT   CUSTODY   BILL       [chap,  xi 

self-indulgence  in  money  matters — but  reckless  (when 
I  am  out  of  spirits  or  want  to  be  amused  and  excited) 
in  what  I  spend  for  the  moment.  Now  that  may  suit 
me  very  well  (though  sometimes  even  I  repent),  but 
it  cannot  suit  the  friends  who  are  with  me  to  be 
suddenly  called  upon  to  share  in  the  caprices  of  these 
oppressive  hours.  The  only  thing  you  will  achieve 
by  making  me  think  that  we  must  share,  is  that  I  shall 
sometimes  check  myself,  which  is  disagreeable  to  me, 
or  sometimes  be  alone  when  it  would  be  infinitely 
pleasanter  to  me  to  be  in  your  frank  and  cheerful 
company.  It  genes  me  to  be  paid  for  pleasures  which 
I  should  equally  have  paid  for  alone  (if  a  woman 
could  run  about  alone  like  a  young  bachelor),  and  as  I 
know  you  practise  self-denial  and  serve  those  who 
belong  to  you,  I  think  it  vexes  me  more  in  you  than 
it  would  in  any  other  person.  I  am  very  prosy,  and  I 
have  no  change.  I  send  back  the  sovereign  (in  a 
blank  cover  like  a  letter  in  a  novel  which  the  heroine 
has  received),  and  for  the  future  we  will  stand  at  the 
door  of  great  places  of  amusement,  consulting  not  our 
inclinations,  but  our  pockets,  with  mutual  deference 
and  respect. 

"  I  have  been  ill  all  day.  I  almost  wish  Thursday 
past.  All  you  can  do  (and  that  is  pretty  much  to  ask 
of  a  lady)  is  to  sit  with  me  in  whatever  pot-house 
I  may  take  up  my  abode,  Monday. 

[She  and  her  uncle  moved  some  time  in  1838  from 
Green  to  Bolton  Street.] 

"  I  shall  know  better  to-morrow  morning  what  im- 
plements can  be  had.  You  will  smile  when  you  hear 
who  I  sent  as  T.'s  substitute.  My  hand  shakes  so  ! 
What  is  the  difference  between  courage  and  nerve  ? 
I  suppose  a  more  fearless  woman  does  not  exist  as  to 
actual  bodily  danger,  and  yet  I  am  an  ass  on  these 
occasions. 

"  I  was  amused  yesterday,  and  I  feel  comfortable 
with  Tolstoi ;  he  is  warm-hearted  and  sincere,  and  I 
have  been  used  to  him  for  six  years,  which  is  always 
a  merit — or  feels  like  one — in  a  friend  ;  also  he  knows 
all  my  past  joys  and  sorrows.  "  Kiss  and  love,"  yes, 
Kisselieff  (delightful  are  your  comments  on   him)  is 


1838]  BILL   PASSES  THE  COMMONS  145 

not  so  pleasing  ;  perhaps  the  very  effort  to  fall  into 
our  ways  and  be  cosy  made  him  less  so.  To  be 
familiar  without  being  intimate  is  to  canter  an 
unbroken  horse,  uneasy  and  uncertain,  not  to  say 
dangerous." 

Tolstoi  was  an  attache  of  the  Russian  Embassy, 
removed  from  Great  Britain  to  Paris  before  Mrs. 
Norton's  separation  from  her  husband.  But  he  and 
Kisselieff"  were  both  in  London  with  the  crowd  of 
foreign  diplomats  assembled  there  for  the  Queen's 
coronation  in  1838. 

The  Bill  passed  the  Commons  in  May  1838  by  91  to 
17,  a  very  small  attendance  in  a  House  of  656  members. 
But  it  had  been  thought  best  by  its  supporters  not 
to  make  it  a  Government  measure.  So  the  Tory 
Disraeli  was  found,  when  it  came  to  a  division,  side 
by  side  with  the  Whig  Charles  Villiers  and  the 
Radical  Daniel  Harvey,  among  those  who  voted  in 
its  favour.  But  on  neither  side  appeared  the  name 
of  Mrs.  Norton's  uncle,  Sir  James  Graham,  who  had 
resigned  the  Admiralty  and  seceded  from  the  Whig 
party  in  1836.  And  the  historian  Grote  for  some 
reason  always  voted  against  it ;  also  the  late  Lord 
Chancellor  of  Ireland  and  future  Lord  Chancellor  of 
England,  Edward  Sugden,  afterwards  Lord  St. 
Leonards,  who  opposed  it  with  all  his  might  at  every 
stage  of  its  progress. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  the  speeches  made 
against  it  in  the  Commons  than  the  general  assumption 
that  all  women  at  variance  with  their  husbands  must 
be  guilty  of  unchastity  ;  and  though  on  a  motion  of 
Lord  Mahon  an  amendment  was  introduced  in  the  Bill 
strictly  limiting  its  advantages  to  such  women  as 
could  prove  the  spotlessness  of  their  reputation  by 
affidavit,  still  the  objection  went  on  being  raised  that 
if  the  measure  were  once  passed  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  keep  unchaste  women  from  getting  access 
to  their  children.  The  fact  that  by  the  existing  law 
a  father  could  remove   his  children  from  a  virtuous 

19 


146  THE   INFANT  CUSTODY   BILL       [chap,  xi 

mother  and  give  them  to  his  mistress — and  indeed  in 
one  instance  had  actually  done  so — was  calmly  and 
constantly  overlooked  ;  and  there  was  another  con- 
viction, equally  deep-rooted,  and  insisted  upon  by 
Mr.  Sugden  and  those  who  voted  with  him,  that  the 
slightest  loosing  of  the  restrictions  by  which  women 
were  bound,  the  slightest  concession  in  their  favour 
would  change  them  all,  even  those  who  had  hitherto 
been  most  faithful  and  devoted  wives  and  mothers, 
into  a  dangerous  menace  to  society. 

Lord  Lyndhurst  had  been  entrusted  with  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Bill  to  the  Lords — the  Law  Lords,  to 
speak  more  strictly — to  whose  particular  attention  it 
was  the  custom  of  this  House  to  delegate  any  Bill 
dealing  with  legal  matters,  not  by  any  general  rule 
indeed  ;  rather  by  general  habit.  For,  to  quote  Mrs. 
Norton  in  her  most  flippant  manner,  commenting  on 
the  disinclination  of  hereditary  legislators  to  take  an 
interest,  as  the  Commons  did,  in  any  matter  they 
could  by  any  means  escape  or  delegate  to  others  : 

11  You  cannot  get  Peers  to  sit  up  till  three  in  the 
morning  listening  to  the  wrongs  of  separated  wives. 
They  are  disturbed  at  the  preposterous  importance 
set  by  women  on  the  society  of  their  infant  children, 
and  doubtful  as  to  the  effect  of  such  a  claim  on  the 
authority  of  the  heads  of  families.  It  is  a  relief  to 
shift  responsibility.  They  are  content  to  sink  back  in 
a  cushioned  carriage,  satisfied  that  Abinger's  opinion 
or  Wynford's  speech  or  Brougham's  opposition  will 
fairly  settle  what  may  be  the  amount  of  endurance  a 
woman  shall  be  legally  bound  to  undergo." 

Lord  Holland  and  the  Duke  of  Sutherland  and  Lord 
Denman  were  among  the  Bill's  supporters  in  the 
Lords  ;  Mrs.  Norton's  old  enemy,  Lord  Wynford,  of 
course  voted  against  it.  But  its  most  bitter  and 
brilliant  opponent  was  the  ex-Chancellor  Brougham, 
whose  former  admiration  for  her  had  been  apparently 
cooled  by  later  events,  or  had  never  been  strong 
enough   to   break    through   his  custom  just  then   of 


1838]  DEFEATED  BY  THE   LORDS  147 

opposing  anything  advocated  by  Lord  Lyndhurst. 
His  speech  against  the  Bill  was  a  triumph  of  sophistry. 
Its  tenor  is  shown  by  the  following  friendly,  indignant 
little  letter  from  Lord  Holland  to  Mrs.  Norton  : 

"1839. 

11  Nothing  could  be  worse,  in  logick  and  feeling,  than 
his  (Brougham's)  speech  on  the  Bill.  It  was  that, 
several  legal  hardships  being  of  necessity  inflicted  on 
women,  therefore  we  should  not  relieve  them  from 
those  which  are  not  necessary,  although  repugnant  to 
the  feelings  of  our  nature,  and  indeed  to  nature  itself. 

"  Whenever  and  whence-ever  Lyndhurst  proposes 
his  Bill — from  the  woolsack  or  benches — he  will  find 
me  on  the  seat  fate  may  assign  me,  ready  to  support 
it.  I  honour  him  for  not  sacrificing  his  feelings  on  this 
occasion,  either  to  the  pedantry  of  law  or  the  con- 
venience of  politicks,  and  I  heartily  wish  him  success 
in  the  Bill. 

"  Yours, 

"  Vassal  Holland." 

But  a  majority  of  the  Law  Lords  were  against  it 
It  was  rejected  by  them  in  August  1838,  and  all  the 
labour  of  the  past  session  was  to  be  done  over  again. 


CHAPTER  XII 

INFANT   CUSTODY    BILL — LETTER   TO   THE   LORD 
CHANCELLOR— VISIT   TO    ITALY 

The  failure  of  the  Infant  Custody  Bill  was  not  the 
most  painful  event  of  this  summer  of  1838— the  summer 
of  the  Queen's  coronation.  Indeed,  even  the  Queen's 
coronation  had  brought  for  Mrs.  Norton  only  a  series 
of  exasperating  and  painful  experiences.  We  hear  of 
her  at  Lord  Lansdowne's  great  ball  given  just  before 
the  all-important  event ;  and  almost  the  same  day  we 
can  read  in  the  papers  a  long  account  of  the  odious 
civil  suit  before  Lord  Abinger,  where  all  her  private 
affairs  were  freely  exposed  to  prove  her  husband's  non- 
liability to  support  her.  And  while  the  Lords  were 
still  debating  the  Bill  on  which  so  much  of  her  future 
happiness  depended,  The  British  and  Foreign  Review, 
a  Tory  quarterly  of  some  note  in  its  day,  but  which 
has  long  since  ceased  to  exist,  published  in  its  August 
number  the  insulting  attack  of  which  we  have  already 
made  mention. 

It  was  a  very  virulent  and  offensive  article,  in  which, 
after  a  long  arraignment  of  the  Bill  itself,  the  last  few 
pages  were  taken  up  by  a  personal  attack  upon  both 
Serjeant  Talfourd  and  Mrs.  Norton,  coupling  their 
names  together  in  offensive  innuendo,  accusing  Mr. 
Talfourd  of  being  the  tool  of  a  dangerous  woman,  who, 
besides  being  an  undutiful  and  rebellious  wife,  was 
148 


1838]  WOMAN'S   RIGHTS  149 

also  the  author  of  several  violent  pamphlets  on  the 
equality  of  the  sexes. 

The  first  impulse  of  the  chief  victim  of  this  attack  on 
seeing  herself  thus  publicly  insulted  was  to  bring  a 
suit  for  libel  against  The  Review,  for  the  false  state- 
ments with  which  its  pages  were  bristling ;  and  her 
discovery  that  a  married  woman  had  no  right  to  sue 
apart  from  her  husband  did  not  diminish  the  exaspera- 
tion with  which  she  prepared  the  only  retaliation  in 
her  power,  a  letter  to  Mr.  Fonblanque's  paper,  The 
Examiner,  a  letter  afterwards  reprinted  in  The  Times. 

This  public  defence  is  chiefly  interesting  for  its 
passionate  denial  that  the  delay  in  the  progress  of  the 
Bill  arose  from  "  the  Norton  negotiations  taking  a 
more  favourable  turn." 

"  The  delay,  I  believe,  was  to  improve  the  details  of 
the  Bill,  and  if  it  should  please  God  to-day  to  give  me 
back  my  little  children,  my  interest  for  the  measure 
would  still  continue.  It  did  not  begin  with  my  own 
misfortunes,  and  will  not  end  with  them." 

The  letter  is  interesting  also  for  its  extreme  eager- 
ness to  disprove  the  imputation  that  she  was  in  any 
way  connected  with  that  band  of  strong-minded 
women  who  had  even  then  begun  to  preach  the  equality 
of  the  sexes  and  to  make  loud  general  declarations  on 
the  rights  and  wrongs  of  women. 

To  such  doctrines  she  was  indeed  to  the  end  of  her 
life  fluently  opposed.  Many  years  after  the  writing 
of  this  letter,  she  was  just  as  ready  to  declare  her 
opinion  that — 

11  The  wild  and  stupid  theories  advanced  by  a  few 
women,  of  '  equal  rights  '  and  '  equal  intelligence '  are 
not  the  opinions  of  their  sex.  I,  for  one  (I,  with 
millions  more),  believe  in  the  natural  superiority  of 
man,  as  I  do  in  the  existence  of  a  God. 

"  The  natural  position  of  woman  is  inferiority  to 
man.  Amen !  That  is  a  thing  of  God's  appointing, 
not  of  man's  devising.     I  believe  it  sincerely,  as  a  part 


ISO  LETTER  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR   [chap,  xii 

of  my  religion.     I  never  pretended  to  the  wild  and 
ridiculous  doctrine  of  equality." 


These  sentiments  sound  strangely  now,  especially 
from  a  woman  who  did  such  good  practical  service 
towards  making  women  equal  with  men,  at  least  before 
the  law.  But  they  are  very  characteristic  of  her  type 
of  mind,  English,  I  may  say,  even  more  than  feminine — 
practical  rather  than  speculative,  impatient,  or  even  a 
little  scornful  of  the  theory,  while  most  busy  tinkering 
at  the  reforms  of  which  the  theory  is  the  soul  and 
spirit.  She  was  always  more  interested  in  the  pro- 
tection of  women  by  men,  or  if  men  failed  them  by  the 
law,  than  in  any  inherent  right  women  might  be 
proved  to  possess  for  self-direction  or  self-assertion. 
Women  had  only  one  right,  she  was  constantly  de- 
claring, and  that  was  to  protection  from  those  wiser 
and  stronger  than  themselves.  It  was  this  which  she 
urged  most  constantly  in  her  crusade  for  her  measure, 
and  with  the  best  results. 

But  though  able  and  eager  to  defend  herself  from  the 
attack  which  her  activities  in  this  direction  had  excited 
against  her,  a  letter  of  hers,  written  months  afterwards 
to  Murray,  shows  her  still  bruised  and  aching  from 
the  pelting  of  coarse  words  she  had  received  upon 
that  occasion : 


"24,  Bolton  Street,  Monday. 

"  Dear  Sir, 

"  You  have  been  very  kind  in,  sending  me  books. 
I  send  you  a  very  interesting  one,  in  my  opinion, 
though  I  fear  not  one  of  general  interest.  It  is  a 
letter  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  on  the  subject  of  the 
Infant  Custody  Bill ;  and  in  the  course  of  which  (in 
answer  to  a  direct  and  most  bitter  personal  attack 
made  on  me  by  Mr.  John  Kemble)  the  facts  of  my  case 
are  briefly  given. 

"  I  hope  you  will  read  the  letter  and  let  me  know 
your  opinion  upon  it.  Mr.  Kemble's  attack  wrung 
from   me    a   contradiction    last   summer,    which   first 


1838]  SELF-DEFENCE  151 

appeared  in  The  Examiner  (signed  with  my  name)  and 
afterwards  was  copied  into  other  papers.  It  is  so  easy 
to  crush  a  woman,  especially  one  whose  reputation  has 
been  already  slandered,  that  I  do  not  think  his  triumph 
is  very  great,  in  having  created  a  prejudice  by  inventing 
a  gross  falsehood  ;  attributing  to  me  that  which  I  never 
wrote,  and  then  abusing  me  in  very  foul  and  gross 
language  as  the  author.  I  might  in  the  same  way 
assert  that  the  Bishop  of  London  wrote  Little's  poems, 
and  that  he  was  therefore  a  disgrace  to  the  Bench  of 
Bishops. 

"  Dear  Sir,  I  do  not  suppose  this  letter  will  be  of 
sufficient  consequence  to  be  reviewed  in  The  Quarterly, 
but  the  subject  of  the  letter  will  perhaps  be  noticed,  as 
it  is  one  of  the  questions  to  be  noticed  this  session.  I 
entreat  of  you,  if  such  shall  be  the  case,  to  use  your 
influence  to  prevent  my  name  (which  has  grown  to  be 
only  the  watchword  of  insult  and  cruel  abuse)  from 
being  any  more  alluded  to.  Let  those  who  dislike  me 
be  satisfied  in  the  assurance  that  I  have  suffered,  and 
do  suffer,  as  much,  I  believe,  as  my  worst  foes  could 
wish.  I  have  one  poor  boast,  and  that  is,  that  my  foes 
are  all  among  strangers ;  it  is  reserved  for  those  who 
never  knew  me  personally,  who  perhaps  never  saw  me 
in  their  lives,  to  erect  themselves  into  judges  of  my 
character  and  motives,  to  erect  an  imaginary  Mrs. 
Norton,  something  between  a  barn-actress  and  a  Mary 
Wollstonecraft,  and  to  hunt  her  down  with  unceasing 
perseverance ;  while  the  reality  of  this  shadow  is 
perhaps  lying  ill  and  broken-hearted,  as  I  was  at  the 
time  when  Mr.  Kemble  wrote  against  me,  vainly 
endeavouring,  through  the  mediation  of  those  who 
do  know  me,  to  arrange  a  quarrel  I  never  sought, 
and  which  took  place  under  circumstances  the  very 
reverse  of  those  supposed  by  the  world.  I  have  tres- 
passed on  your  indulgence  with  a  very  long  note  ;  pray 
excuse  it,  and 

"  Believe  me,  yours  truly  obliged, 

"  Caroline  Norton." 

The  "  Letter  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,"  mentioned  in 
her  note  to  Murray,  was  not  the  least  result  of  a 
summer  of  wretched  struggle  with  her  creditors  and 
her  husband  through  her  creditors  in  the  law-courts, 


152   LETTER  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap,  xii 

of  libellous  abuse  for  which  her  anomalous  position 
allowed  her  no  remedy.  This  second  pamphlet  was 
printed  for  distribution  to  members  of  Parliament  in 
December  1838,  and  used  by  her  to  help  carry  her  Bill 
through  its  third  Parliamentary  session. 

A  copy  of  it  is  to  be  seen  in  the  Lenox  Library  in 
New  York.  "  A  Plain  Letter  to  the  Lord  Chancellor 
on  the  Law  of  Custody  of  Infants,"  by  Pearse  Stevenson, 
Esq.,  with  a  little  inscription  written  under  the  pseudo- 
nym, in  her  own  handwriting,  explaining  that  it  was 
"  a  name  adopted,  as  I  feared,  if  they  knew  it  was  a 
woman's  writing,  it  would  have  less  weight." 

A  polemical  tract  on  a  long-dead  issue !  And  yet  it 
can  still  be  read  with  interest  and  pleasure  ;  indeed  the 
clearness  and  precision  of  its  argument,  its  grace  and 
charm  of  expression,  give  to  her  conclusions  a  sort  of 
brilliancy,  like  her  own  wit  and  beauty.  Many  pages, 
too,  can  be  taken  quite  unreservedly  as  autobiography, 
all  the  more  interesting,  perhaps,  from  the  restraints 
imposed  upon  her  by  her  assumed  character  of  a 
grave,  unimpassioned  barrister.  The  little  passage, 
for  instance,  of  a  bride's  relations  to  her  husband's 
family,  is  notably  from  her  own  experience  : 

"  The  son,  and  brother,  goes  out  into  the  world  and 
selects  a  wife  to  please  himself;  he  brings  this  stranger 
(who  is,  and  expects  to  be,  all  in  all  to  him)  into  the 
bosom  of  his  own  family — persons  utterly  dissimilar, 
perhaps  in  every  thought  and  feeling,  educated  in 
opposite  opinions  and  prejudices,  are  thus  suddenly 
forced  into  companionship  and  intimacy;  a  natural 
and  affectionate  jealousy  of  the  husband,  son,  and 
brother,  who  is  the  common  link  between  them, 
diminishes  the  small  portion  of  indulgence  which, 
under  the  circumstances,  each  might  be  willing  to 
accord  the  other ;  they  become  mutually  disagreeable  ; 
the  bride  wonders  how  her  '  beloved  Henry '  could 
have  sprung  up  among  such  odious  people  ;  the  family 
marvel  at  his  rashness  in  marrying  so  unamiable  a 
person.  All  this  dissatisfaction  is  increased  if  the 
bride  be   a  wit,  a  beauty,  a  fortune  (though  that  is 


ANOTHER   PAMPHLET 


153 


generally  the  safest  quality  she  can  possess),  or  in  any 
way  entitled  to  give  herself  a  few  of  those  pretty  airs 
so  common  in  a  bridegroom's  idol." 

Then  follows  an  account  of  the  unfortunate  results 
if  both  families-in-law  meddle  in  the  differences 
between  husband  and  wife — not  the  smallest  cause, 
indeed,  of  her  own  sufferings  : 

11  The  two  families  instantly  enroll  themselves 
with  a  bitterness  of  animosity  which  no  one  who  has 
not  witnessed  it  would  believe,  and  which  frequently 
far  outdoes  the  feelings  of  resentment  burning  in  the 
hearts  of  the  two  principals.  The  husband  is  taunted 
into  frenzy ;  the  wife  is  encouraged  to  defiance  ;  the 
smallest  concession  on  his  part  is  treated  by  his 
family  as  folly,  weakness,  dishonourable  submission. 
The  wife  finds  she  has  to  struggle,  not  against  one 
angry  man,  but  against  a  whole  regiment  of  angry 
men  and  women,  to  whom,  perhaps,  the  only  real 
offence  of  her  life  has  been  '  that  having  eyes  he  chose 
her,'  and  that  she,  being  young  and  pretty,  and  he 
much  in  love,  exercised  at  one  time  more  influence 
over  him  than  father,  mother,  brother,  or  sister." 

Here  is  a  passage  which  gives  direct  admittance 
to  her  mind,  as  she  thought  of  her  own  husband  and 
her  own  relations,  past  and  to  come,  with  the  little 
children  that  belonged  to  both  him  and  her  : 

"  It  would  be  impossible  to  explain  to  children  of 
tender  age  the  circumstances  of  a  family  quarrel ;  no 
woman  would  be  mad  enough  to  attempt  it,  knowing" 
that  the  only  effect  must  be  to  shake  and  unsettle  their 
minds  on  the  great  principle  of  parental  duty,  without 
giving  her  any  advantage  in  their  affection  which  an 
hour's  persuasion  and  reasoning  from  their  other 
parent  might  not  equally  undo. 

"  Besides,  it  is  not  only  probable,  but  natural,  that 
in  some  cases  a  woman  may  heartily  and  sincerely 
desire  that  her  children  may  love  their  father,  although 
she  be  separated  from  them.  As  to  justification,  she  is 
very  unlikely  to  need  one.     There  is  so  strong  an 


154   LETTER  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap,  xii 

instinct  of  affection  implanted  by  God  in  the  young 
child's  heart  towards  the  being  who  has  watched  over 
his  helpless  infancy,  that  the  difficulty  is  to  be  found, 
not  in  justifying  a  mother  in  his  eyes,  or  preserving 
a  due  share  of  fondness  for  her,  but  on  the  contrary, 
in  any  way  degrading,  or  bringing  him  to  dislike  or 
forget  her.  You  may  teach  a  child  that  his  mother  is 
an  object  of  contempt  or  hatred  to  those  around  him  ; 
he  will  feel  and  know  it,  as  it  were,  by  instinct,  for 
children  are  most  accurate  observers.  You  may  teach 
him  to  hush  his  little  voice  to  a  whisper  when  he 
utters  her  forbidden  name,  or  never  to  pronounce  it, 
for  this  is  only  an  effort  of  his  half-matured  reason  to 
show  submission  and  compliance  to  those  in  authority 
over  him ;  but  nature's  great  instinct  will  remain 
nevertheless,  strong  and  unchangeable,  except  in  rare 
instances.  He  will  love  and  honour  his  mother,  he 
will  sometimes  wonder  at  her  absence,  and  sometimes 
pine  for  her  return ;  he  will  comprehend  that  she  is 
the  subject  of  vehement  displeasure,  without  com- 
prehending that  she  has  deserved  it ;  he  will  perceive 
that  there  is  a  quarrel,  but  nothing  else." 


It  is  interesting  to  find  a  most  enthusiastic  criticism 
of  this  pamphlet  in  a  letter  of  the  American  jurist, 
Sumner,  who  was  being  honourably  received  in 
London  during  the  winter  of  1839.  We  find  it  in 
Pierce's  Life  of  that  statesman,  under  the  date  of 
February  16. 

"  One  of  the  pleasantest  dinners  I  ever  enjoyed  was 
with  Mrs.  Norton.  She  now  lives  with  her  uncle, 
Mr.  Charles  Sheridan,  who  is  a  bachelor.  We  had  a 
small  company  :  old  Edward  Ellice  ;  Fonblanque,  whose 
writings  you  so  much  admire ;  Hayward,  Phipps, 
the  brother  of  the  Marquis  of  Normanby ;  Lady 
Seymour,  the  sister  of  Mrs.  Norton  ;  and  Lady  Graham 
and  Mrs.  Phipps.  All  of  these  are  very  clever  people. 
Ellice  is  the  person  whose  influence  is  said,  more  than 
that  of  all  other  men,  to  keep  the  present  Ministry  in 
power. 

"  But  the  women  were  far  more  remarkable  than  the 
men.      I  unhesitatingly  say  that  they  were  the  four 


1839]     CHARLES  SUMNER   ON   MRS.   NORTON        155 

most  beautiful,  clever,  and  accomplished  women  I  have 
ever  seen  together.  The  beauty  of  Mrs.  Norton  has  : 
never  been  exaggerated.  It  is  brilliant  and  refined., 
Her  countenance  is  lighted  by  eyes  of  the  intensest 
brightness,  and  her  features  are  of  the  greatest 
regularity.  There  is  something  tropical  in  her  look, 
it  is  so  intensely  bright  and  burning,  with  large  dark 
eyes,  dark  hair,  and  Italian  complexion.  And  her 
conversation  is  so  pleasant  and  powerful,  without 
being  masculine ;  or  rather  it  is  masculine  without 
being  mannish ;  there  is  the  grace  and  ease  of  the 
woman,  with  a  strength  and  skill  of  which  any  man 
might  well  be  proud. 

11  Mrs.  Norton  is  about  twenty-eight  [she  was  nearly 
thirty-one]  and  is,  I  believe,  a  grossly  slandered 
woman.  She  has  been  a  woman  of  fashion,  and  has 
received  many  attentions,  which  doubtless  she  would 
have  declined  had  she  been  brought  up  under  the 
advice  of  a  mother,  but  which  we  may  not  wonder 
she  did  not  decline,  circumstanced  as  she  was.  It  will 
be  enough  for  you,  and  I  doubt  not  you  will  be  happy 
to  hear  it  of  so  remarkable  and  beautiful  a  woman, 
that  I  believe  her  utterly  innocent  of  the  grave  charges 
that  have  been  brought  against  her.  I  count  her  one 
of  the  brightest  intellects  I  have  ever  met.  I  whisper 
in  your  ear  what  is  not  to  be  published  abroad,  that 
she  is  the  unaided  author  of  a  tract  which  has  just 
been  published  on  the  Infant  Custody  Bill,  and  pur- 

forts  to  be  by  Pearse  Stevenson,  Esq.,  a  nom  de guerre. 
think  it  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  things  from 
the  pen  of  a  woman.  The  world  here  does  not  suspect 
her,  but  supposes  that  the  tract  is  the  production  of 
some  grave  barrister.  It  is  one  of  the  best  discussions 
on  a  legislative  matter  I  have  ever  read. 

"  I  should  have  thought  Mrs.  Norton  the  most  beau- 
tiful woman  I  had  ever  seen  if  her  sister,  Lady  Seymour, 
had  not  been  present.  I  think  that  Lady  Seymour  is 
generally  considered  the  most  beautiful.  Her  style 
of  beauty  is  unlike  Mrs.  Norton's ;  her  features  are 
smaller,  and  her  countenance  lighter  and  more  English. 
In  any  other  drawing-room  she  would  have  been 
deemed  quite  clever  and  accomplished,  but  Mrs. 
Norton's  claims  to  these  last  characteristics  are  so 
pre-eminent  as  to  dwarf  the  talents  and  attainments 


156  INFANT  CUSTODY   BILL  [chap,  xii 

of  others  of  her  sex  who  are  by  her  side.  Lady 
Seymour  has  no  claim  to  literary  distinction.  The 
homage  she  receives  is  offered  to  her  beauty  and 
her  social  position.  Lady  Graham  is  older  than 
these;  while  Mrs.  Phipps  is  younger.  These  two 
were  only  inferior  in  beauty  to  Mrs.  Norton  and  Lady 
Seymour." 


We  hear  of  her  again  from  another  American,  John 
Van  Buren,  son  of  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
who  had  come  to  England  for  the  Queen's  coronation, 
and  was  still  lingering  there  in  March  of  the  following 
year. 

He  met  her  at  a  reception  at  Babbage's,  standing  in 
a  doorwaj7,  talking  to  Mr.  Talfourd.  She  was  very 
gracious  to  him  and  he  admired  her  conversation,  but 
her  beauty  was  so  unlike  the  fragile  loveliness  of  his 
own  countrywomen  that  he  was  not  entirely  pleased 
with  "  that  superb  lump  of  flesh,"  as  Sidney  Smith 
once  jokingly  called  her.  She  had  never  a  graceful 
figure.  Her  splendid,  heavy  head  was  set  well  forward 
on  her  neck,  the  bend  of  beauty  as  our  grandmothers 
used  to  call  it;  and  though  rather  above  medium 
height,  she  did  not  look  tall  because  of  a  certain 
heaviness  and  clumsiness  of  hips  and  shoulders. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  this  year,  1839,  that  the 
Bill  for  which  she  had  fought  so  long  was  finally 
carried,  not  only  through  the  House,  but  through 
that  cave  of  Conservative  opposition  to  every  Liberal 
measure,  the  Lords. 

But  the  strain  of  the  long  struggle  had  had  its 
effect  upon  her  health.  Her  favourite  sister,  Helen 
Blackwood,  Lady  Dufferin  by  her  husband's  accession 
to  the  title  earlier  this  same  year,  was  going  to  spend 
the  winter  in  Southern  Italy.  It  was  decided  that 
Caroline  should  accompany  the  Dufferins  on  their 
journey. 

A  letter  of  Mrs.  Norton's  to  the  author  of  "  Philip 
Van  Artevelt,"   congratulating  him   on   his   marriage 


1839]  VISIT  TO   ITALY  157 

with  Miss  Spring  Rice,  mentions  also  the  date  of  her 
departure : 

"Bolton  Street, 

"  Monday,  October  1839. 

14 1  send  you  what  the  children  call  a  '  parting 
present,'  having  once  before  had  that  generous  inten- 
tion when  you  left  a  whip  here  by  mistake,  but  at  that 
time  thought  better  of  it. 

44  I  hope  you  will  be  happy.  There  is  no  one,  I 
believe,  deserves  happiness  more ;  and  I  also  hope, 
when  you  have  power  over  the  destiny  of  another, 
that  you  will  remember  that  the  most  intelligent 
woman  God  ever  made  has  something  of  the  child  in 
disposition,  and  that  the  indulgence  shown  to  children 
is  as  necessary  in  their  case  (if  you  mean  either  to  be 
happy)  as  with  an  infant  of  three  years  old.  Do  not 
laugh  at  me  for  lecturing  my  betters.  It  is  only  when 
I  think  of  some  fresh  and  uncommenced  destiny  that  I 
look  gravely  and  sadly  back  at  all  the  mistakes  in  my 
own ;  and  I  am  convinced  that,  as  we  bring  more 
courage  to  the  endurance  of  the  great  than  the  lesser 
evils  of  our  lives,  so  we  grant  more  indulgence  to  the 
real  and  positive  faults  of  our  every-day  companions 
than  to  their  moods,  their  habits,  their  small  wayward- 
nesses, the  points  where  they  neither  fit  o.ur  own  dis- 
positions nor  our  preconceived  notions  of  what  would 
suit  and  please  us.  I  hope  all  will  go  well  with  you 
and  yours. 

14  We  start  on  Friday  morning  for  our  Italian  tour ; 
it  is  a  great  change  for  me.     I  hope  it  will  be  both 

Fleasant  and  beneficial ;  I  shall  then  feel  more  as  if 
had  broken  and  disjointed  my  past  from  my  future 
than  I  have  yet  been  able  to  do. 

44  With  every  good  wish,  believe  me, 
44  Yours  very  truly, 

44  Caroline  Norton." 


Pleasant  and  beneficial  this  first  Italian  trip  must 
have  been  to  that  eager,  beauty-loving  nature,  so  long 
compelled  to  struggle  in  unnatural  ways.  I  quote  a 
lovely  little  bit  from  her  own  poetry  to  show  something 


158  MRS.   NORTON   IN   ITALY  [chap,  xii 

of  her  ecstasy  at  this  first  sight  of  Italian  cities  and 
scenery : 

"  Beautiful  land.     When  first  mine  eyes  beheld  thee, 
Leaped  not  my  heart  as  though  it  knew  thee  well  ? 
As  though  returning  from  a  weary  exile 
In  my  own  home  I  came  at  length  to  dwell  ? 
All  my  life  long,  beholding  Beauty's  fragments, 
A  southern  smile  on  proud  impassioned  lips, 
A  southern  shadow  'neath  some  dreaming  eyelid, 
A  southern  glow,  in  mist  and  dull  eclipse  ; 
Till  round  me  all  at  once,  beloved,  familiar, 
Lay  the  clear  glories  of  the  sunny  clime, 
And  my  soul  thrilled  and  trembled  with  a  rapture 
Unknown,  unrecked  of,  in  the  former  time." 

Fisher's  Drawing-room  Scrap-book  for  1846. — "Genoa." 


CHAPTER    XIII 

PETITION    TO   THE    LORD   CHANCELLOR — DEATH 
OF   WILLIAM 

Mrs.  Norton  was  back  in  England  again  early  in 
1840,  busy  as  usual  with  law  and  lawyers.  This 
time,  however,  thanks  to  her  own  exertions,  she  had 
some  part  of  the  law  on  her  own  side. 

The  new  Act  permitted  any  mother  who  was  denied 
access  to  her  young  children,  if  she  could  prove  by 
affidavit  that  her  own  character  was  above  reproach, 
to  petition  the  Lord  Chancellor  for  a  hearing  before  a 
special  court,  composed  of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  or  other  Chancery  judges.  The 
court,  if  convinced  of  the  justice  of  her  cause,  could 
grant  her  access  to  her  children  when  and  how  it 
thought  best. 

A  clever  young  barrister  and  Quarterly  reviewer, 
whom  we  have  already  found  frequently  mentioned  as 
a  friend  of  Mrs.  Norton's,  undertook  to  collect  the 
affidavits  required  for  her  petition.  This  was  Abraham 
Hayward,  among  whose  published  letters  we  find  so 
many  of  her  own,  signed  "  C.  Client,"  her  nickname 
for  herself  with  him,  while  her  nickname  for  him  was 
"Avocat,"  for  this  reason.  He  never  signed  his  full 
name  "  Abraham,"  for  he  hated  it,  and  could  not  bear 
the  least  allusion  to  it,  and  she  was  fully  aware  of  this 
little  weakness  on  his  part;  so  that  one  day  when 
some  lady,  who  was  bent  on  teasing  him,  asked  him  in 
159 


160  PETITION  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap,  xiii 

her  drawing-room  what  his  "  A  "  stood  for,  Arthur  or 
Andrew,  Mrs.  Norton,  to  cover  his  vexation,  quickly 
replied  "Oh,  dear  no,  it  stands  for  'Avocat'";  and 
"  Avocat "  she  always  used  to  call  him  afterwards, 
styling  herself  his  client. 

I  quote  his  own  account  of  one  of  his  experiences 
while  thus  engaged  in  her  service. 

"  It  was  necessary  to  come  prepared  with  affidavits 
negativing  the  imputation  of  infidelity  ;  and  one  day  a 
friend  of  Mrs.  Norton's,  engaged  in  getting  up  the  case, 
[himself]  received  a  message  from  Lord  Melbourne 
requesting  him  to  call  the  next  morning  early.  Calling 
between  ten  and  eleven,  he  found  Lord  Melbourne  in 
his  dressing-gown  and  slippers,  in  the  act  of  shaving. 
1  So,'  was  the  abrupt  address,  '  you  are  going  to  revive 
that  business.     It  is  confoundedly  disagreeable.' 

"  *  You  know,  my  lord,  that  Mrs.  Norton  can't  live 
without  her  children.' 

"  '  Well,  well,  if  it  must  be  done,  it  must  be  done 
effectively.    You  must  have  an  affidavit  from  me.    The 

story  about  me  was  all  a  d d  lie,  as  you  know.    Put 

that  into  proper  form  and  I'll  swear  it.'  " 

But  it  was  necessary  for  her  to  prove  herself 
guiltless  through  the  years  that  had  already  elapsed 
since  her  separation  .from  her  husband,  and  it  was 
just  at  this  time  that  a  strange,  disquieting  incident 
occurred,  which  was  noticed  in  the  public  papers  of 
the  day,  and  brought  one  at  least  of  the  persons 
connected  with  it  into  the  police  courts. 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  year  1840,  if  not  before, 
Mrs.  Norton  became  convinced  that  not  only  her 
house,  but  she  herself  was  being  watched,  for  some 
not  very  creditable  purpose.  There  were  other  small 
occurrences,  too,  amounting  at  last  to  a  petty  perse- 
cution. On  one  occasion,  for  instance,  she  received  a 
letter  purporting  to  be  on  business,  requesting  her 
to  call  at  a  certain  address,  which  turned  out  to  be 
a  house  of  ill-fame.     Late  in  December,  she  began  to 


1840]  MARLBOROUGH    POLICE   COURT  161 

notice  a  rather  shabby-looking  individual,  who  seemed 
to  haunt  the  street  in  which  she  lived — a  sort  of  anti- 
quated old  beau,  all  powder  and  white  waistcoat,  who 
finally  introduced  himself  to  her  in  a  letter  as  Captain 
Edward  Piers,  lately  retired  from  the  army,  and  living 
on  half-pay,  who  had  become  so  impressed  with  the 
story  of  her  wrongs  that  he  was  ready  to  offer  himself 
as  a  mediator,  or  at  least  conduct  her  to  a  place  where 
she  might  see  her  children. 

Something  in  the  wording  of  the  note,  its  extra- 
ordinary familiarity  with  matters  only  to  be  gathered 
from  her  husband  and  those  closest  to  him,  or  herself, 
seemed  to  offer  the  final  link  in  this  strange  little  chain 
of  accidents.  She  was  convinced  that  this  letter,  with 
those  preceding  it,  was  part  of  a  plot  concocted  by 
her  husband  and  Lord  Grantley  to  compromise  her, 
to  increase  her  difficulties  in  getting  the  affidavits 
necessary  for  her  petition  to  the  Chancellor. 

She  accordingly  decided  to  have  the  man  arrested 
the  next  time  he  made  any  effort  to  approach  her. 
She  had  not  long  to  wait.  Late  one  afternoon,  a  few 
days  before  Christmas,  the  man  forced  his  way  into 
the  house  after  Mrs.  Sheridan,  who  had  just  been 
admitted  to  see  her  daughter,  and  even  entered  a  room 
opening  from  the  hall,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the 
servant  and  Mrs.  Sheridan  to  prevent  him.  He  was 
found  there  by  the  policeman  who  had  been  on  duty 
for  more  than  a  week  for  this  particular  purpose,  lost 
in  contemplation  (such  was  his  impudent  assertion 
to  the  police  magistrate)  of  a  picture  of  the  great 
Sheridan,  which  he  had  found  hanging  on  the  wall, 
and  in  which  he  recognised  a  former  patron  and 
friend. 

The  case  came  up  before  the  Marlborough  police 
court,  December  23,  but  was  dismissed,  when  Mrs. 
Norton,  who  had  appeared  against  him  in  person, 
accompanied  by  her  uncle,  Mr.  Sheridan,  consented 
not  to  press  the  charge,  if  the  prisoner  promised  not 
to  molest  her  further.    But  the  prisoner's  letter  to  her, 


i62  PETITION  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap,  xm 

which  had  to  be  admitted  as  evidence,  with  her  own 
imprudent  admissions  to  the  judge,  when  she  was 
called  to  tell  her  story,  soon  betrayed  the  connection 
she  believed  to  exist  between  this  petty  persecutor 
and  her  husband,  or  her  husband's  family. 

A  full  account  of  the  case  appeared  in  the  news- 
papers next  morning,  stirring  up  all  the  hardly-laid 
scandals  of  Lord  Melbourne's  trial,  and  even  George 
Norton  was  moved  to  send  a  solemn  assurance  to  his 
wife  through  his  fellow-magistrate,  Mr.  Hardwicke, 
that  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  this  last  attempt  to 
molest  her. 

But  the  business  of  her  petition  must  have  dragged 
on  to  extraordinary  length,  for  we  find  her  in  the 
summer  of  1841  still  waiting  and  working  in  the 
matter,  writing  to  Mr.  Hayward  from  her  favourite 
Isle  of  Wight : 

"  COWES,  July  23,   1841. 

"  Dear  Avocat, 

"  I  was  sorry  not  to  see  you  yesterday,  having 
(at  the  risk  of  the  remainder  of  my  reputation  here) 
desired  the  boatman  to  row  me  to  the  steamers  each 
time  they  came  in,  and  each  time  frankly  replying  to 
his  question,  '  It  is  a  gentleman  friend  as  you  expects, 
marm  ?  '  '  Yes,  Clarke.'  Indeed,  but  for  my  boatman 
I  should  find  Cowes  dull,  but  he  is  a  treasure.  .  .  . 
The  mixture  of  wheedling  and  frankness,  of  shrewdness 
and  simplicity,  of  great  and  real  kindness  to  those 
they  believe  poor,  with  a  very  great  approximation  to 
swindling  by  monstrous  overcharge  to  those  they 
think  rich,  forms  the  groundwork  of  the  character  of 
your  true  boatman  ;  and  if  you  can  cross  the  breed,  as 
in  this  instance,  by  matching  a  boatman's  daughter 
with  a  real  sailor,  the  race  produced  will  be  quite 
inestimable ;  adding  to  the  above  primary  qualities 
utter  fearlessness  of  danger,  great  merriment  and 
humour,  and  a  peculiar  readiness  of  apprehension 
worth  all  the  intellect  and  genius  in  the  world  ;  besides 
a  charm  of  manner  quite  distinct  from  taught  rules  of 
politeness,  and  yet  as  good,  if  not  better.  The  fact 
is,   in   our  '  Island  Home '  your  boatman  is  the  only 


1841]  THE   ISLE   OF   WIGHT  163 

parallel  to  the  peasant  of  other  countries.  Farmers 
want  to  be  gentlemen,  and  often  are  in  every  sense  of 
the  word  ;  tradesmen  want  to  be  rakes  and  lords,  and 
tread  on  the  heels  of  the  faults,  manners,  and  habits, 
etc.  of  the  upper  classes.  Ploughmen  are  sulky  and 
stupid  machines  (in  general) ;  cottagers  shy  and  often 
dispirited  and  distant  neighbours ;  your  boatman  is 
the  only  fraction  of  the  English  masses  who  at  once 
acknowledges  the  enormous  gulf  of  distance  between 
his  social  position  and  yours,  and  asserts  with  cheerful 
independence  his  right  of  brotherhood  in  spite  of  that 
distance.  You  may  make  him  duller  by  not  meeting 
him  half-way,  but  you  can't  make  him  less  familiar  ; 
you  may  make  him  happier  and  gayer  by  conversing 
merrily  with  him,  but  you  won't  bring  him  a  grain 
nearer  insolence.  I  take  that  to  be  the  peasant 
character.  I  am  not  sure  that  in  the  over-educating 
of  the  classes  who  never  can  have  our  leisure,  what- 
ever else  they  may  obtain  that  is  ours,  we  have  not 
destroyed  all  our  companionship  with  them :  they 
climb  just  close  enough  to  our  level  to  prevent  their 
looking  up  to  us ;  they  elbow  us,  and  we  have  no 
longer  room  to  stretch  out  our  hand  in  fellowship 
with  them. 

"  Pray  don't  think  I  am  in  love  with  my  boatman. 
He  is  sixty,  and  very  weather-beaten.  Give  me  the 
benefit  of  '  whatever  doubt  may  arise  in  your  mind.' 
f  don't  wish  to  prejudice  my  jury,  but  I  must  say  he 
showed  great  sympathy  in  the  non-arrival  of  my 
'  gentleman  friend,'  and  took  me  (by  way  of  comfort) 
to  see  a  little  deserted  schooner  that  had  been  towed 
into  port  with  nothing  but  a  dog  and  two  canaries  on 
board,  having  been  left  (supposed  sinking)  by  her 
crew.  It  was  a'  common  sight  to  him,  but  he  knew  it 
would  be  a  little  treat  for  me,  and  did  the  honours, 
with  a  Devonshire  House  urbanity,  of  its  broken  sides, 
torn  sails,  and  disordered  rigging.  Good  Avocat,  if  you 
can  but  manage  this  business,  there  will  be  no  one  I 
shall  ever  feel  so  grateful  to,  and  I  really  think  and 
hope  you  will,  and  I  will  make  my  third  son  '  look  up ' 
to  you  when  he  is  at  the  Bar,  as  a  guiding  star.  Lest 
I  should  be  tempted  to  add  to  my  most  lengthy 
observations  on  boatmen  something  on  barristers,  I 
hastily  conclude.     Do  you  believe  shrimps  are  happy  ? 


1 64  PETITION  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap,  xiii 

Great  naturalists  attribute  their  incessant  skippings 
to  the  vulgar  mode  of  expressing  rapture  commonly 
called  'jumping  for  joy,'  but  the  new  school  of 
philosophy  will  rather  have  it  that  they  are  out  of 
breath,  and  trying  to  reach  the  water !  On  which  side 
are  you  ?  Forgive  me  pursuing  you  with  these  marine 
subjects  so  far  inland,  and  believe  me, 

"  Ever  yours  truly, 

"  C.  Norton." 

And,  after  all,  the  case  never  came  to  a  public 
hearing ;  but  this  only  because  George  Norton  at  the 
last  minute  withdrew  his  opposition  and  proposed  to 
compromise. 

"  He  yielded,"  his  wife  says  bitterly,  "  simply  so  far 
as  the  law  would  have  compelled  him,  and  as  was 
necessary  to  save  himself  from  the  threatened  and 
certain  exposure  which  my  appeal  under  the  new 
law  would  have  entailed.  I  saw  my  children  in  the 
most  formal  and  comfortless  manner.  There  was  no 
mercy  or  generosity.  I  expected  none.  He  even 
made  it  a  personal  quarrel  with  his  colleague  and 
fellow  magistrate,  Mr.  Hardwicke,  because  Mr.  Hard- 
wicke  had  permitted  me  one  evening  to  be  in  his 
box  at  the  play  with  my  children.  He  locked  the 
children  themselves  up  for  a  whole  day,  to  punish 
them,  and  impress  upon  their  memories  that  they 
were  not  to  be  seen  with  me  in  any  public  place. 
Their  interviews  with  me  were  to  be  in  private,  that 
no  one  might  know  or  guess  he  had  been  obliged  to 
yield." 

It  was  during  the  Christmas  holidays  of  1841  that 
she  was  thus  grudgingly  allowed  to  see  her  boys 
again.  She  was  still  struggling  to  exact  better  terms 
for  herself  and  them  in  the  following  spring,  March 
1842,  when  we  read  of  her  in  the  "  Reminiscences  "  of 
Mr.  James  Hamilton,  a  son  of  Alexander,  at  a  party  at 
Lord  Palmerston's. 

"  I  saw  coming  into  the  room  alone  a  lady  in  a  rich 
black  dress,  with  beautiful  black  hair  plainly  dressed, 
and  I  directly  asked  who  that  beautiful  woman  was. 


1842]  MR.   JAMES   HAMILTON  165 

11  My  companion  said  :  '  Don't  you  know  her  ?  That 
is  the  Honourable  Mrs.  Norton.  Shall  I  present  you 
to  her?' 

"  And  thus  I  became  acquainted  with  that  very 
talented  and  much-injured  woman.  Our  conversation 
(standing  together  where  I  was  presented)  was  ani- 
mated and  interesting. 

"  I  asked  her  if  she  was  writing  anything. 

"  She  said  :  '  No !  I  am  in  Chancery.' 

"  '  What  do  you  mean  ?' 

"  '  I  am  endeavouring  to  induce  the  Chancellor  to 
allow  me  to  have  my  children  with  me  at  all  times, 
that  I  may  direct  their  education.  At  present  they 
only  come  to  me  for  an  hour  or  two  on  particular 
days.' 

" '  Allow  me  to  say,  madam,  1  have  a  remedy  for 
that.  I  think  you  said  you  wished  to  go  to  the 
United  States?' 

"  '  I  intend  to  do  so.' 

" '  I  am  to  sail  next  week  from  Liverpool.  I  care 
nothing  for  your  Lord  Chancellors.  The  day  before, 
when  your  boys  are  with  you,  I  will  come  to  your 
door,  take  them  in  my  carriage,  post  to  Liverpool,  go 
on  board  ship,  and  you  can  follow  them  as  soon  as 
you  please.' 

"  This  badinage  excited  and  pleased  her." 

A  small  memorial  of  this  meeting  is  the  copy  of  her 
"  Letter  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,"  now  found  in  the 
Lenox  library,  presented  to  Mr.  Hamilton  with  its 
autograph  inscription  by  Mrs.  Norton,  and  given 
many  years  later  to  the  library  by  Mr.  Hamilton's 
grandson,  Major  Philip  Schuyler,  of  Nevis. 

But  her  children  were  never  really  given  back  to 
her  on  the  terms  she  demanded,  "  to  be  with  her  at  all 
times,  that  she  might  direct  their  education,"  until 
a  tragic  accident  had  deprived  her  for  ever  of  the 
youngest  of  them,  and  the  very  pain  of  a  common 
bereavement  had  compelled  a  gentler  spirit  in  her 
husband. 

In  the  autumn  of  1842  all  three  children  were,  as 
usual,  with   their  father    on    his  Yorkshire   estate  of 


166  PETITION  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap,  xiii 

Kettlethorpe,  when  Willie,  the  baby,  by  that  time 
grown  to  be  a  little  lad  of  eight  years  old,  out  riding 
alone  on  his  pony,  was  thrown  and,  though  he  was 
only  slightly  hurt  by  the  fall,  blood-poisoning  set  in 
from  neglect  of  a  bad  scratch  he  had  received  on  his 
arm  and  he  died  before  the  arrival  of  his  mother,  who 
had  been  sent  for  when  his  condition  was  judged  more 
serious.  In  her  own  words  :  "  Sir  Fitzroy  and  Lady 
Kelly  were  staying  with  Mr.  Norton  in  the  country. 
Lady  Kelly  (who  was  an  utter  stranger  to  me)  met  me 
at  the  railway  station.  I  said :  'I  am  here.  Is  my 
boy  better  ? ' 

"  '  No,'  she  said,  '  he  is  not  better,  he  is  dead.'  And 
I  found,  instead  of  my  child,  a  corpse  already  coffined." 

A  letter  written  at  this  time  by  her  to  Rogers,  the 
poet,  gives  the  rest  of  the  story. 

"  Mr.  Charlesworth's,  Chapel  Thorpe, 
"  Tuesday,  September  13. 

"  Dearest  Mr.  Rogers, 

"Thank  you  for  your  letter  to  my  boy.  He  asked 
leave  to  write  to  some  one  who  would  be  '  really  sorry,' 
and  I  gave  him  your  name  and  my  sister  Georgiana's. 
I  still  feel  stunned  by  this  sudden  blow.  The  accident 
happened  here,  and  I  have  been  sheltered  here  ever 
since,  and  do  not  leave  till  Thursday,  when  my  fair 
young  thing  will  be  laid  in  the  grave.  The  room 
here  where  he  died  (and  which  was  the  first  I  entered) 
— the  room  where  there  was  so  much  hurry  and 
agony,  and  then  such  dismal  silence  and  darkness — is 
empty  and  open  again,  and  the  little  decorated  coffin 
is  lying  at  his  father's  house  (about  two  miles  off) 
alone ;  for  Mr.  Norton  is  gone  to  Lord  Grantley's 
[Grantley  Hall]  till  to-morrow,  which  is  fixed  for  the 
funeral.  He  died  conscious ;  he  prayed,  and  asked 
Norton  to  pray;  he  asked  for  me  twice.  He  did  not 
fear  to  die,  and  he  bore  the  dreadful  spasms  of  pain 
with  a  degree  of  courage  which  the  doctor  says  he  has 
rarely  seen  in  so  young  a  child.  He  had  every  atten- 
tion and  kindness  which  could  be  shown,  and  every 
comfort  which  was  needed.  He  was  kept  here,  not 
at  first  from  any  apprehension  of  danger,  but  because 


1842]  DEATH   OF   WILLIE  167 

in  his  father's  house  there  is  no  attendance — nothing 
but  an  old  woman  who  opens  the  gate.  It  may  be 
sinful  to  think  bitterly  at  such  a  time ;  and  at  least  I 
have  not  uttered  the  thoughts  of  my  heart ;  I  have 
choked  them  back,  to  spare  pain  to  one  who  never 
spared  it  to  me !  But  it  is  not  in  the  strength  of 
human  nature  not  to  think,  'This  might  not  have 
happened  had  I  watched  over  them  ! '  or  not  I !  put 
me,  put  their  mother  on  one  side — make  a  cipher  of 
me,  who  nursed  and  bore  him.  Half  what  is  now  so 
lavishly  expended  in  ceremony  and  decoration  of  the 
coffin  which  contains  the  senseless  clay  of  my  little  lost 
one  would  have  paid  some  steady  man-servant  to  be 
in  constant  attendance  on  their  hours  of  recreation. 
My  poor  little  spirited  creature  was  too  young  to 
rough  it  alone,  as  he  was  left  to  do  ;  and  this  is  the 
end  of  it !  When  I  first  came  down  Mr.  Norton  was 
in  bitter  distress,  and  he  comforted  me  with  promises 
for  the  other  boys — for  those  that  remain.  But  his 
impressions  are  so  weak  and  wavering  that  I  only 
tremble.  Oh !  it  is  a  hard  thing  that  I  and  my  boys — 
that  so  many  hearts  should  be  in  the  absolute  power 
of  one  who  has  no  heart.  In  a  few  days  all  will  be  as 
if  it  had  not  been,  to  him  !  Already  there  is  a  change  ; 
already  he  thinks  less  of  the  anguish  which  made  me 
almost  kneel  for  the  boy  [Brinsley]  who  is  with  me 
than  of  the  doubt  whether  that  does  not  in  some  ways 
cancel  his  authority.  I  have  had  hard  words  to  bear 
even  now,  but  I  am  too  miserable  to  shrink  from  them. 
He  was  better  before  Grantley  came  down.  Mean- 
while he  has  at  least  allowed  me  to  take  Brin  with  me 
to  London  for  a  few  days  before  they  return  to  school ; 
my  eldest  will  also  join  me  for  a  day  or  two.  They 
return  on  Saturday,  the  1st.  If  you  are  in  town,  I 
will  ask  you  to  let  my  boy  come  to  you  some  morning; 
he  is  very  eager  about  it.  Poor  little  fellow  !  He 
thinks,  having  seen  his  father  and  me  weeping  to- 
gether, all  is  once  more  peace  and  home.  He  made 
me  write  out  a  list  of  his  relations  and  of  Brinsley's 
and  Georgie's  children.  He  is  full  of  eager  anticipation 
to  make  friends  of  all  that  belong  to  me.  He  was 
dreadfully  overcome  at  first,  and  had  an  hysteric  fit 
when  he  saw  his  brother  dead  ;  but  at  his  age  (eleven 
next  November),  and  with  his  buoyant  temper,  sorrow 


168  PETITION  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap,  xm 

must  be  very  temporary.  My  other  boy's  forethought, 
tenderness,  and  precocious  good  sense  will,  if  God 
spares  him,  be  the  blessing  of  my  life.  He  under- 
stands, by  intuition,  all  I  feel,  and  all  that  ought  to  be. 
He  soothes  his  father,  and  watches  me  as  if  I,  not  he, 
was  the  helpless  one  ;  and  God  knows  I  am  helpless ! 
But  my  child  is  out  of  the  storm  ;  he  is  in  heaven. 
Too  young  to  have  offended,  he  is  with  those  whose 
1  angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  our  Father.'  I 
will  write  to  you  again ;  good  and  kind  you  have 
always  been  to  me.  God  bless  you  ;  I  shall  have  left 
this  on  Thursday  morning. 

"  Your  affectionate 

"  Caroline  Norton." 

She  wrote  to  her  sister,  Lady  Seymour,  a  few  days 
later  : 

"  Mr.  Charlesworth's, 
"  Chapel  Thorpe,  Wakefield, 

"  Tuesday,  September  20,  1842. 

"  Dear  Georgie, 

"My  uncle  brought  me  your  letter  with  others 
to-day.  He  came  down  to  attend  the  funeral,  very 
kindly.  You  know  I  do  not  care  about  these  forms, 
but  Norton  does,  and  I  asked  my  uncle,  when  Norton 
asked  me — in  the  first  hour  of  his  distress,  which  was 
very  heavy.  But  he  is  better  now.  You  will  pro- 
bably get  letters  I  have  written  to  Brinsley  and  my 
mother,  which  will  tell  you  all  about  me,  and  also  a 
letter  from  poor  little  Brin  with  enclosures,  and  if  you 
will  write  him  a  line,  poor  child,  you  will  do  me  a 
favour,  for  I  allowed  him  to  write  to  you  and  Rogers, 
and  he  is  so  eager  about  his  answers.  He  is  quite 
recovered,  and,  indeed,  gay  again,  but  had  a  sort  of 
hysteric  fit  when  he  first  saw  death  in  the  little  familiar 
face.  I  believe  I  should  be  thankful  it  is  neither  of  the 
others.  I  believe  it  would  have  been  worse  to  bear  if 
it  had  pleased  God  to  take  either  of  them.  But  it  is  of 
no  use  just  yet  to  struggle  after  any  comfort  at  all, 
for  I  cannot  feel  or  think  in  any  way  as  I  should — 
frantic  bitterness,  great  horror,  and  fear  of  its  being 
an  offence  to  God  to  feel  as  I  do  is  all  that  is  present 
with  me. 

"  The  accident  would  not  have  happened  if  they  had 


1842]  LETTER  TO   LADY   SEYMOUR  169 

the  commonest  attendance  granted  to  gentlemen's 
sons.  It  is  easy  to  say  (as  Grantley  did)  that  there 
was  no  help  for  it,  and  it  was  God's  will  he  should  die. 
On  that  ground  we  might  never  call  in  a  doctor,  or 
take  any  other  precaution.  He  died  because  he  was 
too  young  to  rough  it  alone,  as  he  was  obliged  to  do  ; 
and  it  is  in  vain  to  say  he  did  not.  He  lies  now  in 
a  decorated  coffin  of  purple  and  silver  and  enclosing 
one  of  lead,  that  when  Norton  is  Lord  Grantley  he 
may  '  remove  him  if  he  pleases  to  the  family  vault ' : 
a  vault  has  been  opened  here  and  built  up  of  brick. 
All  that  is  needless,  all  that  is  of  ceremony  and  expense 
now ;  but  he  died  in  a  stranger's  house,  because  there 
were  not  the  common  comforts  of  a  sick-room  at  his 
father's,  and  in  consequence  of  an  accident,  which 
might  not  have  occurred  if  one  quarter  of  the  sum 
now  lavished  on  nothing  had  been  paid  to  a  steady 
man-servant  to  go  out  with  them.  There  is  a  funeral 
'party'  collected  at  Norton's  house,  or  rather  at 
Grantley's  (for  there  is  nothing  at  Kettlethorpe  but 
his  little  coffin,  alone  in  the  dining-room  where  he 
used  to  play),  but  the  funeral  and  all  will  be  over 
to-morrow,  and  then  I  shall  go  away  with  my  uncle. 
Little  Brin  goes  with  me  and  stays  till  Saturday, 
October  1,  when  both  the  remaining  boys  go  back  to 
school. 

"  I  did  think  at  first  that  Norton  would  be  very 
pliable  about  them,  and  he  wanted  me  to  return  to  him, 
etc.,  but  I  do  not  in  my  conscience  believe  he  wills  a 
thing  two  hours  running.  I  have  tried  and  failed  in 
the  only  matter  I  had  at  heart,  which  was  to  change 
their  school  [at  Eton].  You  have  no  idea  what  they 
have  gone  through,  or  how  unfit  B.  is  to  be  a  master. 
Norton  said  he  should  ■  have  to  pay  for  this  half  at  all 
events,'  therefore  they  had  better  go  back,  having 
admitted  ten  minutes  before  that  Fletcher's  health 
could  not  stand  it,  and  that  the  doctors  had  warned 
him  of  that,  and  having  also  said  he  would  '  lay  down 
his  life  lor  his  dear  boys.'  It  is  all  hopeless,  and  I 
expect  Fletcher  will  be  the  next  to  suffer  from  the 
obstinacy  which  no  event  will  turn  :  the  only  gleam  of 
steadiness  he  has,  is  perpetually  thinking  himself  in 
the  right.  I  have  not  reproached  him,  and  this  happy 
frame  of  mind  will  prevent  his  reproaching  himself. 

22 


170  PETITION  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap,  xiii 

My  poor  little  Willie  asked  for  me  twice,  but  he  was  too 
little  accustomed  to  me  to  miss  my  care  or  nursing. 
He  prayed  and  died  without  fear,  so  young  as  he  was. 
I  can  feel  that  he  is  in  heaven.  I  saw  little  enough 
of  him  in  this  life.  God  grant  I  may  meet  him  in 
another  ! 

"  I  hope  all  yours  are  well. 

"  Yours  affectionately, 

"  Caroline. 

"  Give  Nell  my  love." 

There  was  still  a  struggle  with  her  husband  before 
he  would  bind  himself  by  legal  agreement  to  admit 
her  to  a  fair  share  of  the  companionship  of  the  two 
children  left  to  her. 

There  is  a  letter  on  this  subject  written  to  her  sister. 

11  Dearest  Georgie, 

"  I  am  so  nervous  that  I  can't  even  express 
myself,  having  my  own  affairs  just  talked  over  and 
hanging  on  a  hair.  Talfourd  is  most  kind  and  earnest. 
They  have  yielded  the  point  about  the  children.  I  am 
to  be  with  them  half  the  year,  but  Norton  wants  to 
force  me  to  live  at  Kettlethorpe  that  half-year,  which 
would  never  do.  That  is,  in  fact,  his  having  them  all 
the  year  and  letting  me  see  them  five  months.  I  am, 
in  fear  and  trembling,  standing  firm  for  their  actual 
residence  under  my  own  roof.  Pray  answer  me  by 
return  of  post  if  only  a  single  line,  whether  you  and 
Co.  think  me  right.  I  am  so  afraid  of  missing  them 
altogether,  and  yet  so  afraid  that  if  I  give  in  I  shall  be 
cheated. 

"  Ever  yours, 

"  Carry. 

"  I  hope  to  come  down  directly." 

The  question  of  residence  was  finally  decided  in  her 
favour  and  a  letter  to  Mr.  Rogers  from  London,  where 
she  had  been  permitted  to  have  both  her  boys  with 
her  for  a  little  while  before  they  went  back  to  school, 
shows  already  some  measure  of  a  return  to  her  old 
gay  courage. 


1842]  LETTER  TO   ROGERS  171 

"  Saturday,  October  8. 

11  Dear  old  Friend, 

"  My  boys  are  gone  back  to  school :  the  eldest 
only  yesterday,  as  after  the  funeral  he  became  very 
unwell,  and  so  continued  for  some  days.  And  now 
I  want  to  leave  this  house  for  a  little  [Bolton  Street], 
and  come  where  I  hope  you  still  are.  You  kindly 
wrote  to  offer  to  take  me  rooms  ;  will  you  do  so  ? 
Like  Gilpin's  well-judging  wife,  I  would  have  a  reason- 
able eye  to  economy,  but  as  it  is  for  a  short  time — 
three  weeks,  or  less — and  I  am  sick  and  sad,  I  would 
rather  be  at  the  hotel  than  have  the  trouble  of  even  a 
small  house.  If  I  could  have  a  very  airy  double- 
bedded  room  and  a  little  sitting-room,  my  maid  and 
I  would  require  nothing  more  in  the  way  of  lodging. 
Then  if  you  would  tell  the  landlady  to  charge  board 
per  week,  and  give  me  what  she  pleases — promising 
that  I  never  want  and  never  eat  '  pies  and  cakes  and 
dainties,'  but  really  only  a  morsel  of  meat  and  potatoes 
— it  would  be  a  very  agreeable  arrangement  to  me,  as  I 
should  be  spared  all  thought  just  now,  and  live  like  a  lily 
of  the  field — or  a  weed  of  the  cliff.  There  is  a  business- 
like beginning,  like  the  poetess  who  desired  to  borrow 
of  you.  My  boys  are  nice  creatures — intelligent,  free- 
spirited,  and  true ;  they  are  so  happy  at  being  reknit 
to  me  that  I  can  scarcely  think  of  it  without  weeping. 
Little  Brin  is  brimful  of  gratitude  and  love  to  all  who 
ever  loved  or  were  kind  to  me.  He  made  me  walk  down 
to  your  house,  and  we  stood  outside  the  little  iron  gate 
which  has  so  often  admitted  me  for  pleasant  mornings, 
for  some  time,  talking  of  the  nightingales  and  Milton's 
receipt  for  '  Paradise  Lost '  and  all  the  treasures  in 
your  shut-up  house.  The  elder  is  quieter,  more 
thoughtful,  less  spirited,  but  seems  like  an  angel  to 
me,  and  his  whole  care  is  to  keep  watch  over  his 
father's  kindness,  that  it  may  not  flicker  or  go  out 
from  me.  Mr.  Norton  has  a  very  great  love  for  them, 
I  do  believe— more  than  I  thought  or  expected — and 
young  as  my  eldest  boy  is,  he  is  allowed  the  greatest 
influence  over  his  father's  mind,  and  uses  it  with  a 
tenderness  and  tact  very  unusual  at  his  age.  I  think 
and  hope  that  we  shall  now  be  very  friendly  together, 
even  if  we  continue  apart.  Mr.  Norton  went  to  the 
school  to  desire  they  would  consider  me  equal  with 


172  PETITION  TO  THE  LORD  CHANCELLOR  [chap.xiii 

himself,  and  not  be  further  controlled  as  to  seeing 
them — to  come  and  go  on  my  own  direction.  You 
may  believe  I  have  no  greater  anxiety  than  to  satisfy 
him  now,  and  prove  to  him,  poor  fellow,  that  it  will 
answer  better  to  allow  this  peace  to  fall  upon  us  than 
the  long  war  which  is  ended.  He  is  very  sorry  for 
his  little  one,  and  very  proud  of  these  two.  I  have 
sent  a  letter  of  Brin's  to  his  uncle  Brinsley,  which  I 
will  show  you,  as  I  think  it  very  touching,  and  indeed 
it  would  be  good  reading  for  such  men  as  in  anger 
resolve  to  break  the  tie  of  mother  and  child.  In  it  he 
says,  '  I  think  I  would  die  of  grief  if  I  were  parted  from 
you  again  ;  you  can't  think  how  changed  I  am.  I  love 
you  and  my  brother  ten  times  more  than  I  used  to  do  ; 
I  love  you,  Papa,  and  Spencer  beyond  any  thing  or 
person  I  ever  did  before.'  In  the  earnestness  of  his 
child's  heart— loving  all  better  than  ever,  for  being 
again  in  his  natural  position  towards  his  mother! — 
'tis  a  lesson  which,  though  simply  given,  is  full  of 
truth.  I  cannot  tell  you  how  this  letter  touched  me ; 
I  think  I  feel  as  he  does,  that  I  love  every  one  better 
since  I  received  this  dear  scrawl  of  affectionate  writing. 
I  hope  you  are  well,  and  that  you  will  be  at  Broad- 
stairs  when  you  get  this  and  when  I  arrive.  The 
Phippses  have  gone  to  Ramsgate  on  account  of  the 
child  who  has  been  ailing.  If  I  can  have  one  room 
looking  on  the  sea  of  course  I  should  prefer  it,  and 
as  it  is  so  late  in  the  season  perhaps  this  can  be 
accomplished.  My  boys  will  be  with  me  again  at 
Christmas,  and  then  you  will  let  me  bring  them  to  you. 
"  Yours  affectionately 

"  Caroline  Norton. 

"  I  have  not  had  one  moment  to  write  while  they 
were  with  me." 

A  lovely  little  poem  of  hers  which  appeared  in  the 
Fisher's  Drawing-room  Scrap-book  of  1848  may  well  be 
quoted  as  conclusion  to  this  chapter. 

"The  Sons  of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch.     1848. 

"  Oh,  fair  ye  are,  young  playmates,  and  welcome  to  my  sight, 
With  your  glad  eyes  full  of  sunshine,  and  innocent  delight. 
Not  for  your  noble  lineage — though  in  those  lovely  sons, 
The  best  blood  of  all  Scotland,  its  course  unsullied  runs, 


1842]  "  THE  SONS  OF  THE  DUKE  OF  BUCCLEUCH  "  173 

But  for  that  ye  are  children,  and  in  life's  dawning  hour, 

Beauty  and  love  and  happiness,  seem  perfect  in  their  power 

Oh,  give  me  children's  voices,  the  sweet,  the  clear,  the  kind, 

Their  bursts  of  merry  laughter  that  float  upon  the  wind  ; 

Give  me  the  tranquil  glory  that  shines  from  children's  eyes, 

Their  eager,  restless  questions,  their  playful,  keen  replies, 

The  freedom  of  their  charity,  the  fervour  of  their  prayers 

(Which  I  hear  like  one  who  may  be  guest  of  'angels  unawares'), 

Their  sympathy  with  sorrow,  their  ignorance  of  sin, 

And  their  wiles  to  be  '  first  favourite  ' — the  utmost  love  to  win  1 

How  often  from  the  elder  world,  whose  path  is  set  with  thorns, 

Its  cares,  its  struggles — and  its  woes,  its  heartburnings,  and  scorns, 

My  soul  hath  taken  refuge  within  the  wayside  bowers, 

Where  peace  and  welcome  wooed  me  still,  from  children  and  from 

flowers. 
Oh,  fair  befall  ye,  little  ones  !     Be  happy,  little  men  ! 
A  blessing  follow  all  your  steps,  o'er  mountain,  rock,  and  glen. 
A  blessing  rest  on  all  your  paths,  along  the  lone  hillside, 
The  trees  that  have  o'ershadowed  you,  the  blue  lake's  placid  tide  ; 
A  blessing  on  the  heathery  tracks  which  saw  your  frolic  play, 
And  the  moss  ye  climbed  to  gather,  by  the  torrent's  foaming  spray  ; 
A  blessing  on  your  waking,  in  the  glorious  morning  light, 
And  a  blessing  on  your  sleeping  in  the  calm,  soft  hush  of  night ! 
And  when,  oh,  lovely  children,  your  northern  home  you  see, 
Look  round  on  all  the  distant  hills  and  greet  them  thus  from  me  — 
Say  far  away  in  England  a  little  grave  is  green, 
Of  one  who  roamed  those  Highland  tracts,  with  spirit  fresh  and  keen, 
And  when  within  the  English  grave  we  laid  our  early  dead, 
We  sent  for  flowers  from  Scotland  to  bloom  above  his  head. 
He  perished  young.     Oh  !  noble  boys,  may  ye  all  live  to  prove 
Strong  men — good  hearts — and  blessings  to  the  country  of  your  love'; 
May  ye  preserve,  through  all  life's  years  of  mingled  joy  and  pain, 
A  childlike  faith  in  holy  things,  and  prayers  not  taught  in  vain, 
A  childlike  reverence  and  trust  in  manhood's  fearless  heart, 
Nor  from  that  strength  of  earlier  years,  in  later  times  depart, 
But  keep  the  name  renowned  so  long  in  song  and  ancient  story, 
The  name  of  Scott,  the  proudest  still,  in  Scottish  themes  of  glory." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE    DREAM — THE   CHILD    OF   THE    ISLANDS — FISHER'S 
DRAWING-ROOM   SCRAP   BOOK 

In  pursuing  to  its  end  the  story  of  Mrs.  Norton's 
separation  from  her  children,  it  has  been  necessary 
to  leave  out  much  that  is  essential  in  any  complete 
account  of  her.  It  will  be  well,  therefore,  to  turn 
back  now  for  a  year  or  two,  to  pick  up  the  more 
important  of  these  lost  links. 

In  the  early  summer  of  1840,  a  year  after  the 
passage  of  the  "  Infant  Custody  Bill,"  we  find  her 
again  before  the  public  as  a  writer  of  graceful  verse. 
"The  Dream  and  Other  Poems"  was  the  name  of  this 
last  collection,  in  a  fine  octavo  volume  published  by 
H.  Colburn,  Great  Marlborough  Street,  illustrated  with 
a  portrait  of  herself  by  Landseer.  The  great  animal 
painter  was  not  so  good  at  human  likenesses,  and 
though  he  gives  the  poise  of  her  head  upon  her 
shoulders  better  than  Hayter  or  Maclise  succeeded  in 
doing,  the  picture  is  not  especially  convincing,  and 
is  chiefly  interesting  as  a  witness  of  the  new-made 
friendship  between  the  painter  and  the  poetess,  a 
friendship  still  evident  in  the  mass  of  clever  sketches 
and  caricatures  found  among  her  papers  with  the  great 
man's  sign  across  them. 

The  principal  poem  of  this  collection,  "  The  Dream," 

is  the  same  she  had  already  offered  to  Murray  in  1834 

under  a  slightly  different   name — a   long,   meditative 

piece,  narrating  a  young  maiden's  dream  of  happiness 

174 


MRS.    NORTON. 
From  an  engraving  by  F.  C.  Lewis,  after  the  drawing  by  Sir  Edwin  Landseer,  R.A 
P-  174] 


i84o]  REVIEWED   BY  THE   QUARTERLY  175 

with  an  ideal  mate,  and  her  mother's  counsels  on  her 
approaching  marriage,  in  a  fashion  so  long  gone  by 
that  it  would  find  few  readers  now,  in  spite  of  the  real 
beauty  of  many  of  its  passages. 

"Twilight"  is  one  of  her  shorter  poems,  often 
chosen  to  represent  her  in  collections  of  British  poets. 
I  will  only  mention  it,  therefore,  as  a  touching  bit  of 
autobiography,  drawn  from  her  first  dreary  years 
without  her  children,  as  is  also  "The  Fever  Dream," 
from  which  I  have  already  quoted.  "A  Destiny"  is 
another  short  narrative  poem.  These  and  a  few 
graceful  but  incorrect  sonnets  make  up  nearly  all 
that  is  new  in  the  book,  which  was  very  favourably 
reviewed  in  the  current  number  of  the  Quarterly  for 
1840  by  Hartley  Coleridge,  who  names  its  author  first 
of  ten  other  British  poetesses,  all  lost  to  memory  now 
except  Miss  Barrett,  who  was  placed  second  in  the 
list.  In  this  notice  Mrs.  Norton  is  given  her  famous 
title,  "The  Byron  of  Modern  Poetesses." 

But  she  was  not  too  overwhelmed  by  the  honour  to 
make  a  little  fun  of  the  fantastic  form  of  the  criticism, 
each  authoress  in  the  article  of  Mr.  Coleridge  being 
distinguished  by  a  special  flower — a  rose,  a  violet,  or 
a  lily,  etc.,  as  the  case  might  demand. 

The  Honourable  Mrs.  Norton  to  John  Murray 
24,  Bolton  Street,  October  31,  1840. 

"  Dear  Sir, 

"  I  ought  to  have  thanked  you  from  Ventnor, 
instead  of  waiting  till  my  return  to  town,  for 
your  kindness  in  sending  me  an  early  copy  of  the 
Quarterly,  containing  all  that  comfortable  flattery 
respecting  'The  Dream.'  I  assure  you  I  felt  almost 
ashamed  at  seeing  my  name  '  first  on  the  list  called 
over,'  but  very  grateful  for  the  indulgent  spirit  in 
which  the  article  was  written,  and  would  be  glad  to 
know  to  which  of  your  Slaves  of  the  Lamp  1  stand 
indebted.  I  was  conscious  of  the  egoism  of  the  volume 
when  I  saw,  collected  into  that  form,  the  many  scat- 
tered occasional  pieces,  added  to  the  principal  poem. 


176  "THE   DREAM,"  ETC.  [chap,  xiv 

I  hope  to  do  better  yet,  and  will  carefully  avoid  any 
faults  that  have  been  pointed  out. 

"  As  to  '  V.'  (one  of  the  list  of  poetesses),  you  have, 
of  course,  been  made  aware  that  she  is  since  engaged 
to  be  married  to  Mr.  C,  a  very  handsome,  agreeable, 
well-informed  clergyman  (as  I  hear).  Now,  as  she  is 
forty,  nothing  shall  persuade  me  that  the  proposal 
and  the  marriage  are  not  the  result  of  the  review. 
All  the  single  ladies  noticed  in  that  article  should 
instantly  think  of  changing  their  names,  retaining 
merely  the  floral  name  allotted  to  them  in  the 
Quarterly.  I  half  wish  I  could  change  mine  (especially 
since  Mrs.  Erskine  Norton  has  ingeniously  taken  to 
playing  at  being  me  to  all  the  publishers) ;  but  I  dare 
say  I  should  not  change  it  to  my  satisfaction  at  this 
time  of  day,  though  I  want  ten  years  of  '  V.,'  and  '  V.' 
is  very  little  and  very  lame,  and  has  not  (as  I  am 
credibly  informed)  nearly  such  a  straight  nose  as  I 
have. 

"  Her  poetry  is  wonderful ;  I  hardly  believed  it  was 
a  woman's  at  first. 

"  If  the  author  of  the  article  knew  Lady  Emeline 
Wortley,  he  would  be  too  much  in  love  with  her  to 
be  able  to  laugh  at  her.  She  is  the  truest,  simplest 
woman  that  ever  was  bit  by  romance ;  but  you  are 
an  infidel,  and  don't  believe  in  women  because  your 
Byron  wrote  some  clever  lines  against  the  sex — yet 
how  was  so  profligate  a  man  to  know  good  women  ? 

"  Not  that  I  defend  my  lady's  high-flown  language 
and  starry  sublimities  '  at  all  times ' ;  but  she  is  so 
gentle,  and  earnest,  and  real,  that  I  feel  a  little  un- 
happy when  I  read  the  review.  Poisoned  daggers  are 
a  joke  to  being  laughed  at  in  the  Quarterly. 
"  Believe  me,  dear  sir, 

11  Yours  very  truly  obliged, 

"  Caroline  Norton." 


The  book  was  very  popular  for  a  time.  Its  first 
edition  was  quickly  exhausted ;  a  second  followed 
with  a  characteristic  preface  interesting  to  Americans 
in  its  reference  to  the  piratical  customs  of  American 
publishers  and  editors  before  the  days  when  Copyright 
in  the  United  States  was  given  to  foreigners. 


1840]         PREFACE   TO   AMERICAN   EDITION  177 

"  A  compliment  has  been  lately  paid  me  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  which  I  confess  I  have  received 
very  unwillingly.  I  allude  to  the  printing  of  my  pub- 
lished poem  in  an  American  paper,  a  huge  mammoth, 
a  very  boa-constrictor  of  a  paper,  which  has  contrived 
to  swallow  it  all.  Now,  anxious  as  I  naturally  am  to 
become  acquainted  with,  and  popular  among,  my  friends 
in  '  the  Far  West,'  yet,  if  it  so  pleased  them,  I  could 
wish  to  be  more  formally  introduced.  1  would  fain  not 
appear  before  Bryant's  countrymen  and  fellow-citizens 
in  such  a  very  careless  undress  ;  indeed,  this  sort  of 
dealing  is  hard,  both  as  respects  author  and  publisher 
in  England,  etc. 

"Of  a  still  more  equivocal  nature  is  the  compliment 
(if  compliment  it  can  be  called)  of  printing  and  pub- 
lishing poems  as  mine  which  are  not  from  my  pen, 
and  of  whose  authorship  I  know  nothing.  These 
poems  may  be  as  good,  or  better  than  those  which  I 
am  in  the  habit  of  writing,  but  they  are  not  mine,  and 
therefore  I  would  rather  they  were  not  attributed  to 
me.  Moreover,  the  '  Melancholy  Musings  '  given  to 
me  by  no  means  express  my  real  sentiments.  I  am 
thankful  to  say  that  I  still  believe  in  '  Love '  and 
1  Friendship '  quite  as  firmly  as  in  the  outset  of  my 
life  ;  and  that  far  from  taking  that  saucily  high  tone 
with  the  '  meteor  Fame,'  and  treating  her  with  a  sort 
of  despairing  contempt,  I  am  reasonably  anxious  that 
what  1  write  should  be  read  and  approved  of;  willing 
to  take  all  pains  to  attain  that  desirable  end ;  and  at 
this  moment  full  of  hope  and  interest  respecting  the 
success  of  this  very  volume,  and  the  chance  of  my 
having,  perhaps,  to  correct  a  third  edition  through  the 
indulgence  of  my  readers." 

She  was  not  disappointed.  The  results  of  'The 
Dream,'  from  a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  must  have 
been  very  satisfactory.  She  writes  to  Mrs.  Shelley 
the  same  autumn : 

"  In  three  weeks  I  am  to  set  up  the  magnificence  of 
a  one-'orse  shay  myself,  and  then  Fulham  and  the 
various  streets  of  London,  where  friends  and  foes  live, 
will  become  attainable  ;  at  present  I  have  never  stirred 
over  the  threshold  since  I  came  up  from  Brighton." 

23 


178  "THE   DREAM,"   ETC.  [chap,  xiv 

There  were  other  things  besides  the  one-'orse  shay 
which  made  this  year  seem  a  kind  of  turning-point  in 
her  favour.  She  had  not  been  received  at  Court  since 
1835,  when  all  three  Sheridan  sisters  made  their 
courtesy  to  Queen  Adelaide  at  the  Drawing-Room 
after  their  brother's  elopement.  But  at  one  of  the 
May  Drawing-Rooms  of  1840  she  was  permitted  to 
enjoy  this  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  complete 
social  rehabilitation  she  had  undergone  during  the 
years  since  her  husband's  repudiation  of  her.  She 
was  presented  by  her  sister  Lady  Seymour,  and  we 
even  know  how  she  was  dressed,  if  the  Court  Journal 
is  correct  in  its  account  of  her :  "  Isle  of  Wight  lace 
over  white  satin,  with  flowers  and  lappets  to  cor- 
respond ;  train  of  pale  lilac  Irish  poplin,  lined  with 
white  gros  de  Naples,  and  trimmed  with  lace  ;  head- 
dress wreaths  of  lilac  flowers,  with  pearl  piquets 
intermixed,  and  plumes  of  ostrich  feathers."  It  was 
well  her  beauty  was  still  the  kind  "  a  faire  voir  aux 
ambassadeurs  "  ;  enough  in  itself  to  make  a  sort  of 
triumph  of  this  return  to  Court ;  for  there  were 
enemies  as  well  as  friends  in  the  reception  she  met 
there — great  Tory  ladies  who  continued  to  behave  as 
if  the  verdict  for  Lord  Melbourne  had  never  been 
given. 

And  she  was  frightened  when  she  made  her  first 
courtesy  to  the  young  Queen,  so  evidently  so  that  the 
Queen  noticed  it  and  spoke  of  it  afterwards  to  her 
uncle  and  Mrs.  Norton's  old  friend,  Leopold,  King  of 
the  Belgians,  drawing  from  him  the  following  cautious 
commendation  in  reply : 

"  It  was  a  very  generous  feeling  which  prompted 
you  to  see  Mrs.  Norton,  and  I  have  been  too  much  her 
friend  to  find  fault  with  it. 

"  True  it  is  that  Norton  was  freely  accepted  by  her, 
but  she  was  very  poor,  and  could,  therefore,  hardly 
venture  to  refuse  him.  Many  people  will  flirt  with  a 
clever,  handsome,  but  poor  girl,  though  not  marry 
her;    besides,   the   idea  of  having   old  Sherry  for  a 


1840-41]  LORD  MELBOURNE'S  FALL  FROM  OFFICE  179 

grandfather  had  nothing  very  captivating.  A  very 
unpleasant  husband  Norton  certainly  was,  and  one 
who  had  little  tact. 

"  I  can  well  believe  that  she  was  much  frightened, 
having  so  many  eyes  on  her,  some  of  which,  perhaps, 
not  with  the  most  amiable  expression." 

Indeed,  when  we  remember  the  Queen's  usual  atti- 
tude towards  women  who  were  unfortunate  enough  to 
have  drawn  the  public  attention  upon  any  irregularity 
in  their  marriage  relations,  it  must  be  inferred  from 
her  gracious  reception  of  Mrs.  Norton  on  this  and 
many  other  occasions  that  she  wished  to  be  just  to 
an  injured  woman,  and  believed  her  friendship  with 
Lord  Melbourne  to  have  been  innocent. 

But  the  Queen  was  about  to  lose  Lord  Melbourne 
by  a  natural  reversal  of  the  fate  which  had  already 
deprived  Mrs.  Norton  of  the  same  society ;  for  in 
September  1841  the  Whigs  were  driven  from  office, 
and  Queen  Victoria  had  to  receive  Sir  Robert  Peel  in 
the  place  of  her  good  old  friend.  She  made  no  secret 
of  her  regret  for  her  loss  ;  and  Sir  John  Campbell, 
who  had  also  lost  office,  shows  all  that  melancholy 
satisfaction  we  so  often  feel  in  the  contemplation  of 
another  person  worse  off  than  ourselves,  in  his 
prophecy  as  to  Lord  Melbourne's  sentiments  in  the 
matter. 

"  I  called  on  Melbourne  this  morning  between 
twelve  and  one.  I  found  him  shaving.  This  was 
his  levee  ;  I  said  I  came  to  offer  my  congratulations  on 
his  release  from  the  cares  of  office,  and  that  I  hoped 
he  was  happy. 

"  '  Oh  !  very  happy.'  He  smiled,  but  in  such  sort ! 
In  truth  he  will  feel  it  more  than  any  of  us.  He  not 
only  loses  the  occupation  and  excitement  of  office,  but 
his  whole  existence  is  changed.  With  him  it  is  as  if 
a  man  were  to  have  his  wife  and  children  torn  from 
him  when  he  falls  from  power.  He  consorted  con- 
stantly with  the  Queen  on  the  most  easy  and  delightful 
footing,   and   he    is    continually   banished   from    her 


180  "THE   DREAM,"   ETC.  [chap,  xiv 

presence.  I  know  not  what  will  become  of  him. 
The  shadow  of  the  trees  at  Brocket  will  be  very 
funereal." 

But  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  of  his  judgments 
upon  the  men  and  motives  of  his  time,  Sir  John 
Campbell  seems  to  have  been  mistaken.  As  he 
acknowledges  himself: 

"  I  yesterday  met  Melbourne  at  dinner  at  Lady 
Holland's.  He  was  very  gay,  and  1  begin  to  think  he 
will  carry  it  off  the  best  of  us  all." 

Charles  Greville  remarks  further  on  the  same 
subject : 

"As  soon  as  he  was  out,  he  resumed  his  old  habits : 
Holland  House,  Lady  Palmerston !  There  he  loved 
to  lounge  and  sprawl  at  his  ease,  pouring  out  a  rough 
but  original  stream  of  talk,  shrewd,  playful,  and 
instructive." 

And  we  have  plenty  of  evidence  that  "  Palazzo 
Boltoni,"  as  Mrs.  Norton  sometimes  amused  herself 
by  calling  her  new  home  with  her  uncle,  was  another 
of  the  homes  where  he  was  often  and  pleasantly  found 
in  these  latter  days. 

But  hardly  more  than  a  year  after  his  fall  from 
office,  Lord  Melbourne  had  a  slight  stroke  of  paralysis, 
which  prevented  him  for  some  months  from  appearing 
in  public, 

"And  when  he  again  occupied  his  accustomed  seat 
in  the  Lords,  though  his  features  were  little  altered 
and  he  could  walk  supported  by  his  staff,  slightly 
dragging  one  leg,  there  was  no  speculation  in  his 
eye  ;  sometimes  when  he  spoke  his  voice  was  broken 
as  if  he  had  been  going  to  burst  into  tears."  * 

From  that  time  on  till  his  death  there  was  a  slow 
decay  of  both  mind  and  body.  He  is  described  thus 
tenderly  by  one  of  his  own  family  : 

1  Lord  John  Campbell's  "  Autobiography. 


1841-2]       DINNERS   AT   "PALAZZO   BOLTONI"  181 

"A  somewhat  massive,  though  not  corpulent  figure 
reclining  in  an  armchair,  a  white  or  nearly  white  head, 
shaggy  eyebrows,  and  a  singularly  keen  and  kindly 
eye,  fits  of  silence,  occasionally  broken  by  an  incisive 
and  rather  paradoxical  remark,  accompanied  by  a 
genial  laugh  and  a  rubbing  of  the  hands  together. 
I  remember  also  noticing  how  easily  the  tears  came 
into  his  eyes,  not  so  much,  as  I  have  heard  it  said,  at 
anything  tender  or  affecting  as  at  the  expression  of  a 
noble  or  generous  sentiment :  a  shattered  invalid,  very 
little  left  of  the  exuberant  vitality  which  has  been 
noted  as  one  of  his  marked  characteristics." 

He  was  able  to  the  end,  however,  to  enjoy  society, 
and  was  flattered  and  pleased  when  new  men  wanted 
to  meet  him.  His  old,  yet  new,  relations  with  Mrs. 
Norton  through  this  latter  part  of  his  life  speak  for 
themselves  in  the  following  extract  from  the  diary  of 
the  actor  Macready  : 

"  Mrs.  Norton  has  sent  a  note  inviting  us  to  meet 
Lord  Melbourne  at  her  house  to-morrow,  as  he  wishes 
to  speak  with  me  about  the  theatre." 

August  22. 

11  Dined  with  Mrs.  Norton.  Met  Lady  Conyngham, 
Lord  Melbourne,  Sidney  Herbert,  Kohl,  and  the 
Sheridans.     Rogers  came  in  the  evening." 

These  little  dinners  at  "  Palazzo  Boltoni "  were 
sometimes  more  than  mere  social  occasions.  I  speak 
of  one,  especially  described  by  Fanny  Kemble  back  in 
England  in  1841,  with  her  American  husband,  Mr. 
Butler,  which  Mrs.  Norton  had  made  the  opportunity 
for— 

"A  certain  shy,  silent,  rather  rustic  gentleman  from 
the  far-away  province  of  New  Brunswick,  Mr.  Samuel 
Cunard,  afterwards  Sir  Samuel  Cunard,  of  the  great 
mail-packet  line  of  steamers  between  England  and 
America.  He  had  come  to  London  an  obscure  and 
humble  individual,  endeavouring  to  procure  from  the 
Government  the  sole  privilege  of  carrying  the  trans- 


182  "THE   DREAM,"   ETC.  [chap,  xiv 

Atlantic  mails  for  his  line  of  steamers.  Fortunately 
for  him,  he  had  some  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Norton, 
and  the  powerful  beauty,  who  was  kind-hearted  and 
good-natured  to  all  but  her  natural  enemies  {i.e.  the 
members  of  her  own  London  society),  exerted  all  her 
interest  with  her  admirers  in  high  places  in  favour  of 
Cunard,  and  had  made  this  very  dinner  for  the  express 
purpose  of  bringing  her  provincial  protege  into  pleasant 
personal  relations  with  Lord  Lansdowne  and  Lord 
Normanby,  who  were  likely  to  be  of  great  service  to 
him  in  the  special  object  which  had  brought  him  to 
England.  The  only  other  individual  I  remember  at 
the  dinner  was  that  most  beautiful  person,  Lady 
Harriet  d'Orsay. 

"  Years  after,  when  the  Halifax  projector  had  become 
Sir  Samuel  Cunard,  he  reminded  me  of  this  charming 
dinner,  in  which  Mrs.  Norton  had  so  successfully 
found  the  means  of  forwarding  his  interests,  and 
spoke  with  enthusiasm  of  her  kind-heartedness  as  well 
as  her  beauty  and  talents.  He,  of  course,  passed  under 
the  '  Caudine  Forks,' 1  beneath  which  all  men  en- 
countering her  had  to  bow  and  throw  down  their 
arms." 

But  such  pleasant  entertainments  in  Bolton  Street 
had  to  suffer  many  sad  interruptions.  On  July  20, 
1 841,  while  crossing  by  steamer  to  Ireland,  the  husband 
of  Helen  Sheridan,  Lord  Dufferin,  died  suddenly  from 
the  effects  of  an  overdose  of  a  sedative,  his  wife  being 
still  abroad,  in  delicate  health,  at  Castellamare. 

In  September  of  the  following  year  came  the  fatal 
accident  to  little  William  Norton;  and  just  a  year 
afterwards  the  news  of  the  death  of  Frank  Sheridan, 
treasurer  of  the  British  colony  at  Mauritius,  of  con- 
sumption ;  followed  in  November  of  the  same  autumn 
by  the  death  of  Charles  Sheridan  the  elder,  almost  as 
premature  as  those  preceding  it,  for  he  was  hardly 
fifty  when  he  died — a  very  kind  and  courteous  gentle- 
man  and    no   mean   scholar,   though   lacking    in    the 

1  Mrs.  Kemble  shows  here  her  lack  of  a  classical  education.  It 
was  at  the  Caudine  Pass,  during  the  Samnite  war,  that  the  Roman 
army  was  made  to  "  pass  under  the  yoke." 


1841-5]  DEATH   OF   CHARLES  SHERIDAN  183 

brilliant  qualities  which  have  made  other  members  of 
his  race  so  remarkable. 

On  his  decease  most  of  his  moderate  fortune  went 
to  his  nephew  and  namesake  Charles,  at  that  time 
Secretary  at  the  British  Embassy  in  Paris  ;  and  his 
niece,  who  owed  so  much  of  the  comparative  peace 
and  security  of  her  life  since  her  separation  from  her 
husband  to  her  uncle's  generous  protection,  was  again 
obliged  to  find  a  new  home. 

There  is  an  undated  note  from  her  to  Mrs.  Shelley, 
written  probably  the  summer  succeeding  her  uncle's 
death,  and,  if  so,  telling  her  first  effort  to  find  a  new 
place  of  abode  for  herself  after  Bolton  Street  was 
given  up. 

"  I  have  moved  myself  bag  and  baggage  to  16,  Norfolk 
Street,  Park  Lane ;  through  the  grating  of  my  prison 
bars  I  drop  this  note,  hoping  some  friendly  passer-by 
will  charitably  carry  it  to  its  destination.  Written 
this  detestable  smoking  day  of  August  at  about  a 
quarter  to  two  p.m." 

But  in  July  1845  we  find  her  finally  settled  at 
No.  3,  Chesterfield  Street,  Mayfair,  the  little  house 
which  was  to  be  her  home  in  London  for  more  than 
thirty  years  to  come.  It  has  been  somewhat  altered  of 
late  years,  enlarged  by  another  storey,  its  dull  brick 
front  somewhat  diversified  from  the  dead  level  of  those 
many  little  London  houses  which  lined  the  narrow 
streets  of  Mayfair  during  the  thirties  and  forties. 
But  it  still  stands,  for  those  who  like  to  go  and 
look  at  it  and  please  themselves  with  the  thought 
that  it  is  not  so  utterly  changed  as  to  prevent  that 
good  company  which  once  gathered  in  its  threadbare, 
much-encumbered  little  drawing-room,  from  finding 
their  way  back  and  making  a  shift  to  feel  at  home 
there,  if  some  spell  should  ever  bring  them  back  from 
their  graves. 

There  is  another  of  Mrs.  Norton's  letters  to  Mrs. 
Shelley,  written,  it  is  true,  rather  earlier  than  the  date 


1 84  "THE   DREAM,"  ETC.  [chap,  xiv 

of  this  new  departure,  but  more  appropriate  here  where 
it  is  the  writer,  not  Mrs.  Shelley,  who  is  looking  for  a 
new  domicile. 


"  With  respect  to  your  house  in  Berkeley  Street, 
I  think  it  would  be  most  childish  to  give  up  a  good 
and  cheap  house  because  a  '  fie-fie '  had  lived  in  it, 
which,  I  suppose,  is  the  English  of  the  'associations.' 
My  uncle  says  he  never  heard  of  such  an  objection  ; 
but  he  is  not  the  best  person  to  ask.  If  it  is  any 
satisfaction  to  you  to  know  that  they  thought  to  deter 
me  from  taking  a  house  in  Hereford  Street  by  telling 
me  there  were  two  houses  of  that  sort  in  the  same 
street,  and  that  I  obstinately  persisted  in  thinking  the 
neighbourhood  as  good  as  when  the  houses  do  not 
acknowledge  themselves  (as  in  Grosvenor  Square), 
you  have  that  bright  example  before  you.  I  really 
think  these  sort  of  objections  absurd,  and  if  you  con- 
sider them  otherwise,  you  will  never  get  a  small,  cheap, 
and  pretty  house  at  the  west  end  of  the  town,  for  such 
houses  are  the  natural  prey  of  such  persons  ;  and  ever 
and  anon  they  hire  them  and  put  parrots'  cages  and 
geraniums  into  the  balcony,  which  they  paint  green. 
But  if  you  act  discreetly  and  modestly,  that  is,  if  you 
paint  the  rails  dark  green  and  don't  buy  a  parrot,  and 
are  contented  with  two  geraniums  inside  the  drawing- 
room,  the  barrenness  of  virtue  will  be  apparent,  and 
the  house  will  be  as  good  as  if  its  face  was  built  out  of 
the  sorrowful  and  remorseful  bricks  of  the  Millbank 
Penitentiary." 


But  though  her  Irish  blood  was  sure  to  go  on 
dancing  amid  all  the  distractions  and  bereavements 
that  were  continually  disturbing  her  life,  she  suffered 
none  the  less  from  these,  in  her  health  and  in  her 
work.  Since  1841  she  had  been  engaged  on  "The 
Child  of  the  Islands,"  a  longer,  more  ambitious  poem 
than  anything  she  had  yet  attempted.  She  herself 
explains  in  the  preface  of  the  volume,  which  appeared 
early  in  1845,  some  of  the  causes  which  so  long  re- 
tarded its  publication. 


1844-5]         "THE  CHILD   OF  THE   ISLANDS"  185 

"  Had  I  been  able  to  carry  out  my  original  plan,  the 
volume  now  published  would  have  appeared  on 
November  9,  1842,  being  the  first  anniversary  of  the 
birth  of  His  Royal  Highness.  The  recurrence  of 
domestic  affliction  in  two  consecutive  autumns  com- 
pelled me  to  relinquish  the  literary  tasks  in  which  I 
was  engaged ;  and  I  abandoned  all  thoughts  of  pub- 
lishing at  that  particular  time." 

It  was  still  further  delayed  by  an  illness  of  her  own 
in  the  late  autumn  of  1844,  which  kept  her  from  finish- 
ing it  until  too  late  for  the  Christmas  sales,  as  she 
ruefully  remarks  to  her  sister,  Lady  Seymour,  who 
was  spending  that  winter  in  Paris. 

She  was  always  most  eager  to  support  and  enlarge 
her  early  reputation  for  poetic  genius — a  word  more 
freely  used  in  those  days  than  now.  She  had  written 
to  reproach  her  old  friend  Rogers  for  having  spoken 
of  her  as  the  author  of  "  Fugitive  Pieces,"  signing 
herself  "  Yours  dutifully,  the  author  of  '  Fugitive 
Pieces.'  Ah,  little  did  I  think  you  would  have  sacri- 
ficed me,  your  friend,  for  a  '  bon  mot.'  All  night  their 
paper  ghosts  have  bowed  to  me,  saying  '  We  are 
Fugitive  Pieces  !     We  are  Fugitive  Pieces  ! ' " 

Certainly  after  the  production  of  "  The  Child  of  the 
Islands  "  no  one  could  ever  so  designate  her  again. 
It  was  a  very  long  poem  in  four  parts — Spring, 
Summer,  Autumn,  and  Winter — addressed  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales  (to  quote  from  her  own  preface), 
"  as  the  most  complete  existing  type  of  a  peculiar 
class — a  class  born  into  the  world  of  very  various 
destinies,  with  all  the  certainty  human  prospects  can 
give  of  enjoying  the  blessings  of  this  life  without 
incurring  any  of  its  privations.  I  selected  the  Prince 
of  Wales  as  my  illustration,  because  the  innocence  of 
his  age,  the  hopes  that  hallow  his  birth,  and  the 
hereditary  loyalty  which  clings  to  the  throne,  concur 
in  enabling  men  of  all  parties,  and  of  every  grade  of 
society,  to  contemplate  such  a  type,  not  only  without 
envy  but  with  one  common  feeling  of  earnest  good- 

24 


186  "THE   DREAM,"   ETC.  [chap,  xiv 

will.  Nor  will  the  presence  of  this  goodwill  weaken 
the  contrast  or  destroy  the  argument.  It  is,  on  the 
contrary,  a  gleam  of  that  union  and  kindness  of  feeling 
between  the  higher  and  lower  classes  which  it  is  the 
main  object  of  the  writer  of  these  pages  to  inculcate — 
a  gleam  which  may  fade  into  darkness  or  brighten  into 
sunshine,  but  which  no  one  who  attentively  observes 
the  present  circumstances  of  this  country  can  believe 
will  remain  unaltered." 

She  sent  the  following  letter  to  Rogers  with  a  copy 
of  the  poem  : 

11 1  send  you  a  book,  the  book,  my  book !  I  know 
you  will  not  read  it,  but  peep  into  it  for  the  sake  of 
the  writer.  I  have  marked  two  episodes — the  death 
of  a  gipsy  girl  in  prison  and  the  description  of  a  ballet 
dance.  Don't  lend  it  to  anybody,  because  I  depend  on 
it  for  some  bread  and  butter. 

"  P.S. — A  friend  of  mine,  interrupting  me,  declares 
that  I  have  not  marked  the  best  passages,  and  has 
marked  one  of  his  own  selecting  ;  you  may  play  at 
pitch-and-toss  to  decide  which  you  may  read;  only 
remember  '  England  expects  every  man  will  do  some 
portion  of  his  duty.'  The  last  sentence  written  on  a 
scroll  flying  from  a  mast." 

The  book  was  warmly  reviewed  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  for  July,  by  her  personal  friend,  Abraham 
Hayward,  who  begins  by  calling  it  "great  poetry,  true 
poetry  ! "  Great  poetry  it  was  not.  Hardly  poetry 
at  all,  if  we  judge  it  by  the  standard  of  works  that 
immediately  preceded  and  followed  it :  "  In  Memoriam," 
"Sordello,"  "The  Strayed  Reveller,"  etc.  And  yet 
we  must  concede  to  it  something  more  than  mere 
rhymed  facility,  something  as  real  and  beautiful  as 
herself— that  very  mortal  beauty,  never  to  be  denied, 
even  by  those  who  deny  her  immortality. 

Taken  at  this  human  valuation,  there  will  always  be 
a  great  deal  of  charm  and  interest  in  "  The  Child  of  the 
Islands,"  a  great  deal  of  the  quality  of  the  author,  in 
fact — her  frank,  generous  nature,  her  hatred  of  sham, 


1845]  GEORGE  NORTON'S  KINDNESS  TO  THE  POOR  187 

her  audacity — not  so  much  of  thought  as  of  fidelity 
to  her  own  impressions — impressions  almost  always 
fresh-coined  from  her  own  experience.  For  in  all 
that  long  poem  there  is  hardly  a  description,  or  an 
incident,  or  an  analogy  which  cannot  be  traced  back 
directly  to  something  her  eyes  had  seen,  her  ears  had 
heard,  or  her  heart  felt. 

The  one  pleasant  thing  we  know  about  George 
Norton  is  her  reference  to  him  in  a  note  appended  to 
a  certain  passage  to  prove  that  the  pathetic  incident 
therein  narrated  was  founded  on  an  actual  fact.  After 
the  death  of  his  little  boy  in  1842,  when  he  had  asked 
his  wife  and  she  had  refused  to  come  back  to  him, 
he  had  fallen  back  into  quasi-friendly  relations  with 
her,  making  her  occasional  visits  at  her  uncle's  house 
and  afterwards  at  her  own ;  and  in  that  partial  renewal 
of  familiar  intercourse  he  evidently  had  talked  to  her 
about  his  experiences  in  the  Whitechapel  division  of 
the  police  magistracy,  to  which  he  had  some  time  been 
transferred  from  Lambeth,  where  the  wretchedness  of 
the  poor  people  seems  to  have  impressed  him  with 
pity.  In  fact,  the  first  case  which  made  the  public 
aware  of  the  miserable  wages  of  poor  sewing-women 
came  up  and  received  notice  in  his  division.  Another 
of  his  experiences  on  the  Bench  is  also  given  by  his 
wife. 

The  captain  of  a  merchant  vessel,  who  was  brought 
before  Mr.  Norton  for  attempting  to  commit  suicide, 
after  a  long  struggle  with  adverse  fortune,  was 
relieved  from  the  poor-box  ;  and  some  encouraging 
advice  was  given  him  by  the  magistrate.  Three  or 
four  years  afterwards  he  returned  with  the  amount, 
and  stated  that  he  had  begun  again  as  a  sailor  before 
the  mast,  and  had  again  become  master.  He  said  the 
magistrate  had  "  put  a  new  heart  into  him." 

The  following  passage  is  chosen,  one  of  many,  as 
an  example  of  the  graceful,  tender  sentiment  which 
shows  her  poetry  at  its  best,  and  which  is  often  at  its 
best  in  this  long  poem  : 


:88  "THE   DREAM,"   ETC.  [chap,  xiv 

" On  how  many  graves 

Rests  at  this  hour  their  first  cold  winter's  snow  ? 

Wild  o'er  the  earth  the  sleety  tempest  raves  ; 

Silent  our  lost  ones  slumber  on  below, 

Never  to  share  again  the  genial  glow 

Of  Christmas  gladness  round  the  circled  hearth  ; 

Never  returning  festivals  to  know, 

Or  holidays  that  mark  some  loved  one's  birth, 

Or  children's  joyous  songs,  and  loud,  delighted  mirth. 

"The  frozen  tombs  are  sheeted  with  one  pall, 
One  shroud  for  every  churchyard,  crisp  and  bright, 
One  foldless  mantle,  softly  covering  all 
With  its  unwrinkled  width  of  spotless  white. 
There,  through  the  grey  dim  day  and  starlit  night, 
It  rests  on  rich  and  poor,  and  young  and  old, 
Veiling  dear  eyes,  whose  warm  home-cheering  light 
Our  pining  hearts  can  never  more  behold, 
With  an  unlifting  veil,  that  falleth  blank  and  cold. 

"And  there  rests  one,  whom  none  on  earth  remember 
Except  that  heart  whose  fond  life  fed  its  own  : 
The  cherished  babe,  who  through  this  bleak  December, 
Far  from  the  mother's  bosom  lieth  lone, 
Where  the  cold  north  wind  makes  its  wintry  moan. 
A  bird  whose  song  beyond  the  cloud  is  gone  ; 
A  child  whose  empty  cradle  is  bedewed 
By  bitter  falling  tears  in  hours  of  solitude. 

"  Ah,  how  can  death  untwist  the  chord  of  love, 
Which  bid  those  parted  lives  together  cling  ? 
Prest  to  the  bosom  of  that  brooding  dove, 
Into  those  infant  eyes  would  softly  spring 
A  sense  of  happiness  and  cherishing  ; 
The  tender  lips  knew  no  completed  word, 
The  small  feet  could  not  run  for  tottering, 
But  a  glad  silent  smile  the  red  mouth  stirred, 
And  murmurs  of  delight  whene'er  her  name  was  heard. 

"  Oh  !  darling,  since  all  life  for  death  is  moulded, 
And  every  cradled  head  some  tomb  must  fill, 
A  little  sooner  only  hast  thou  folded 
Thy  helpless  hands,  that  struggled  and  are  still  : 
A  little  sooner,  thy  Creator's  will 
Hath  called  thee  to  the  life  that  shall  endure : 
And  in  that  heaven,  His  gathered  saints  shall  fill, 
Hath  made  thy  calling  and  election  sure. 
His  work  in  thee  being  done,  was  thy  death  premature?" 


1846-9]     THE  DRAWING-ROOM   SCRAP   BOOK  189 

Immediately  after  the  appearance  of  "  The  Child  of 
the  Islands,"  Mrs.  Norton  became  editor  of  Fisher's 
Drawing-room  Scrap-book  one  of  the  last  survivals 
of  the  annuals  of  her  youth,  but  differing  thus  much 
from  the  English  Annual  and  the  Keepsake,  of  which 
she  had  also  been  editor,  that  in  this  later 
publication  the  editor  was  also  supposed  to  be  the 
sole  contributor.  The  years  of  1846,  '47,  '48,  and  '49  of 
the  Scrap-book,  form,  therefore,  a  sort  of  collection 
of  her  own  poetry,  profusely  and  beautifully  illus- 
trated by  steel  engravings,  reproductions  of  famous 
pictures,  or  country  seats,  or  beauties,  the  engravings, 
however,  being  arbitrarily  furnished  by  the  publishers 
who  happened  to  be  backing  the  enterprise,  the  poetry 
to  be  added  as  appropriately  as  possible. 

One  may  imagine  that  poetry  called  into  being  by 
such  very  formal  suggestion  could  not  always  be  of  a 
very  high  grade— must  often  have  hardly  been  poetry 
at  all ;  yet  perhaps  these  very  conditions  best  fitted 
the  discursive  fluency,  the  picturesque  imagination 
of  Mrs.  Norton's  verse ;  certainly,  the  most  beautiful, 
as  well  as  the  least  known,  of  Mrs.  Norton's  shorter 
pieces  are  found  in  this  collection. 

She  must  have  written  with  great  facility,  for  these 
four  volumes  are  by  no  means  the  sum  of  her  literary 
activity  during  these  four  years.  Besides  several 
collections  of  songs,  both  words  and  music,  published 
by  Chappell,  one  is  constantly  coming  across  short 
stories  by  her  in  the  current  magazines — of  very 
uneven  merit,  indeed,  but  none  without  some  touch 
of  her  natural  charm. 

And  any  account  of  her  at  this  time  would  be  incom- 
plete without  some  mention  of  her  interest  in  the 
hopes  and  apprehensions  which  were  invading  all 
Europe  as  the  great  revolutionary  outbreak  of  1848 
approached  nearer  and  nearer.  During  the  Chartist 
disturbances  of  1848  her  "Letters  to  the  Mob"  ap- 
peared successively  in  the  Morning  Chronicle,  a  Peelite 
paper  owned   by  Sidney   Herbert  and  the  Duke   of 


igo  "THE   DREAM,"  ETC.  [chap,  xiv 

Newcastle.  They  were  afterwards  collected  and 
published  in  a  little  tract,  very  rare  to-day,  but  well 
worth  reading,  if  only  to  remind  one  of  a  side  in 
her  too  often  forgotten  in  the  estimate  of  her  attraction 
for  every  clever  man  who  came  anywhere  near  her. 

Another  interest  in  her  writings  on  these  subjects  is 
the  constant  proof  they  give  of  a  type  of  mind  quite 
other  than  that  which  one  would  naturally  attribute  to 
a  woman  of  her  reputation,  a  mind  ardent  and  humane, 
appealed  to  by  all  generous  and  noble  impulses,  but 
practical  rather  than  speculative,  appreciative  rather 
than  imaginative,  eminently  reasonable,  with  a 
kind  of  constructive  good  sense — which  makes  one 
wonder  whether  if  she  had  been  a  man  she  would  not 
have  made  a  greater  mark  on  her  generation  as  a 
political  leader  than  she  did  as  a  woman  and  a  poet. 


CHAPTER  XV 

NEW  FRIENDS — KINGLAKE — THE  DUFF  GORDONS — SIDNEY 
HERBERT — THE  REPEAL  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS — 
RELATIONS    WITH    HER   CHILDREN 

Caroline  Norton  was  not  thirty-seven  when  she 
went  to  live  alone  in  Chesterfield  Street.  Beautiful, 
impulsive,  and  unconventional,  it  was  impossible  she 
should  not  have  drawn  down  upon  herself  some 
portion  of  that  blame  which  is  so  easily  expended 
upon  a  woman  separated  from  her  husband,  who  still 
desires  to  please,  and  has  a  natural  liking  for  men's 
society.  Some  of  the  gossip  talked  about  her  was,  no 
doubt,  quite  groundless  ;  though  for  some  it  is  possible 
that  she  herself  gave  occasion  if  not  actual  material. 

It  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  she  had  not 
sometimes  grown  restive  under  the  endless  pro- 
hibitions of  her  lot,  that  woman's  divorce  of  which  she 
was  one  day  to  speak  so  bitterly  : 

"Alone.  Married  to  a  man's  name,  but  never  to 
know  the  protection  of  this  nominal  husband,  nor  the 
joys  of  family,  nor  the  every-day  companionship  of  a 
real  home.  Never  to  feel  or  show  preference  for  any 
friend  not  of  her  own  sex,  though  tempted,  perhaps, 
by  a  feeling  nobler  than  passion — gratitude  for 
generous  pity,  that  has  lightened  the  dreary  days. 
To  be  slandered,  tormented,  insulted  ;  to  find  the 
world  and  the  world's  law  utterly  indifferent  to  her 
wrongs  or  her  husband's  sin  ;  and  through  all  this  to 
lead  a  chaste,  unspotted,  patient,  cheerful  life ;  without 
191 


192  NEW   FRIENDS  [chap,  xv 

anger,  without  bitterness,  and  with  meek  respect  for 
those  edicts  which,  with  a  perverse  parody  on  Scripture, 
pronounce  that  it  '  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone,' 
but  extremely  good  for  woman." 

Perhaps  it  was  as  well  that  she  was  so  scourged 
with  adversity  during  those  first  years  of  her  solitary 
existence  and  that  she  had  to  work  so  hard — ex- 
hausting mental  work,  often  the  merest  drudgery,  but 
often,  too,  that  most  exciting  and  absorbing  occupation 
of  literary  creation,  which  raises  one,  for  the  moment 
at  least,  to  a  different  plane — a  higher  plane,  perhaps, 
than  that  of  mere  desire. 

The  winter  immediately  after  her  uncle's  death 
would  have  been,  perhaps,  the  loneliest  she  ever  spent, 
if  she  had  not  had  this  work.  During  all  this  period 
she  was  especially  busy  upon  her  poem,  "  The  Child  of 
the  Islands,"  and,  at  least  during  their  holidays,  she 
had  her  children.  But  besides  her  more  permanent 
losses,  she  was  at  this  time  separated  from  both  Lady 
Seymour  and  Lady  Dufiferin,  who  were  spending  that 
year  in  Paris,  and  Mrs.  Sheridan  with  them. 

She  writes  to  Lord  Melbourne  from  St.  Leonards  -on- 
Sea,  in  November  1844,  to  urge,  as  usual,  somebody 
else's  claim  to  be  helped  : 

"  How  can  you  turn  such  a  deaf  ear  and  such  a 
turned-up  nose  to  the  claims  of  old  Jack  Morris  ? 
Why  don't  you  help  the  man  who  helped  your  brother 
at  Westminster,  in  the  good  old  days  when  you  weren't 
weak  and  sick  and  he  wasn't  faint  and  starving  ?  Do 
you  think  the  God  who  made  Jack  Morris  and  you 
does  not  judge  it  for  selfishness,  something  also, 
perhaps,  of  ingratitude  ?  For,  no  doubt,  when  he  had 
his  riches,  and  his  twenty-stall  stable,  and  his  West- 
minster votes,  very  civil  words  you  all  said  to  him. 
Oh,  rouse  your  sluggish  old  heart  to  write  to  some  one 
for  him ;  and  don't  fly  in  the  face  of  Heaven,  who 
built  up  your  face  into  the  picture  of  honesty  and 
generosity,  thereby  (alas !)  creating  much  mistaken 
trust  and  vain  expectation  in  the  hearts  of  all  those 
whose  ill-judging  eyes  have  gazed  on  your  countenance. 


1844]  LETTERS   TO   LORD   MELBOURNE  193 

"  Why  don't  you  write  ?  Who  have  you  got  at 
Brocket?  Does  Emily1  hang  her  long  gowns  up,  like 
banners  of  victory,  in  the  cupboards  ?  Does  Lady 
Holland  cut  herself  in  four  to  help  and  serve  you? 
Are  Fanny  Jocelyn's2  soft  purple  eyes  at  your  table 
under  the  lamps?  Or  does  the  Minny3  who  rivals 
our  own  Georgy,  rouse  you  to  any  love  and  admira- 
tion of  your  own  relations  ? 

"  Adieu.  I  am  extremely  busy,  yet  I  write  to  you. 
You  are  not  busy,  yet  you  do  not  write  to  me.  I 
abjure  the  world,  and  will  sell  all  I  have  and  give 
to  the  poor.  To-morrow  is  Brin's  birthday,  and  we 
have  ordered  roast  pig  for  dinner." 

Another  note  to  Lord  Melbourne,  written  three 
weeks  later,  is  as  follows  : 

"  Pray  do  write.  I  am  ill  in  bed  myself,  and  if  you 
don't  write  I  shall  think  you  are  ill  in  bed  too.  I  did 
imagine  I  had  coaxed  you  into  scribbling  by  asking 
you  that  information  for  my  poem  ["  The  Child  of  the 
Islands  "].  You  always  say  you  are  glad  to  teach  me 
things  and  supply  me  with  scraps  of  knowledge.  How 
shall  I  get  on  if  I  am  so  neglected  by  my  tutor  ? 

"  The  boys'  tutor,  whose  name  is  Mr.  Murray,  and 
who  is  curate,  is  the  first  gentleman  of  Scotch  extrac- 
tion I  ever  met  who  knew  nothing  whatever  about  his 
clan  or  his  family.  In  general  they  will  ferret  you  out 
their  roots  (to  say  nothing  of  their  branches)  with  the 
sagacity  of  truffle-dogs  ;  but  here  is  a  fellow  who  asks 
what  Dunmore's  title  is,  and  who  is  the  elder  branch 
of  the  Murray  clan. 

"  There  is  a  passage  in  my  poem  about  the  Church 
disturbances  in  Scotland,  against  those  who  want  to 
elect  their  own  ministers.  Breadalbane  wanted  me  to 
leave  it  out,  but  I  have  been  obstinate.  I  told  him 
what  you  had  said  about  the  difference  between  being 
in  and  out  of  office.  He  laughed  very  much,  and  said 
he  should  send  you  a  whole  deer  to  make  up." 

The  illness  she  speaks  of  was  serious  enough  to  put 

1  Lady  Ashley's  daughter. 

2  Lady  Fanny  Cowper. 

3  Lady  Ashley,  Lady  Palmerston's  eldest  daughter. 

25 


194  m*  KINGLAKE  [chap,  xv 

off  her  new  book  till  after  the  Christmas  sales,  but  we 
hear  of  her  late  in  January  at  a  dinner  in  the  shadowy 
dining-room  of  the  poet  Rogers,  the  only  woman 
invited  to  meet  seven  men,  among  whom  were  Alfred 
Tennyson  and  Crabb  Robinson  and  Moxon  the 
publisher ;  arriving,  as  was  too  often  her  custom, 
very  late,  but  very  agreeable,  quite  able  to  hold  her 
own  in  that  society  of  poets  and  publishers. 

And  there  were  other  dinners  that  winter  in 
Hayward's  old  chambers  in  the  Temple,  and  gatherings 
afterwards  in  the  room,  "stern  with  yellowish  law- 
books," that  stood  in  the  place  of  a  drawing-room. 

And  an  evening  in  her  own  house  was  made 
memorable  by  the  discussion  which  raged  between 
Lockhart  and  Hayward  as  to  the  standing  of  literary 
men  in  London  society,  where  feeling  ran  so  high  that 
it  had  to  be  assuaged  next  day  by  a  shower  of  notes, 
notably  one  from  herself  to  her  sharp-tempered  little 
friend. 

"March  6,  1844. 

"  Sulky,  Black-hearted  Avocat, 

"  I  have  partially  recovered  from  my  amazement 
that  you  should  say  such  unjust  and  bitter  things 
about  my  want  of  generosity,  etc.  If  this  is  a  Queen 
Bee  you  had  better  say  so,  and  I  will  go  and  call  and 
coax  her,  and  we  will  sit  together  (as  much  as  she  will 
permit),  and  ask  her  here.  If  you  were  as  gentle  as 
your  friend  Kinglake  you  would  have  understood 
better  what  we  all  said,  and  what  Lockhart  especially 
meant,  and  all  that  I  supported  of  what  he  said,  which 
you  call  going  against  you.  You  don't  deserve  to  be 
written  to,  and  I  only  do  it  because  you  are  my 
Avocat.  I  say  again,  if  you  have  not  persuaded  her 
we  burnt  her  in  effigy  (for  you  are  a  gossip),  I  will 
go  and  see  the  large  brown  eyes  that,  like  the  eyes  of 
all  people  of  imperfect  hearing,  have  so  much  plaintive 
listening  in  their  expression. 

"  Yours,  etc., 

"C.  Client." 

Kinglake,  the  future  historian  of  the  Crimean  War, 


1844-5]  NEW  FRIENDS  195 

was  then  just  beginning  to  be  known  in  London 
society  as  a  clever  young  barrister  who  had  journeyed 
extensively  in  the  East  and  narrated  his  adventures 
in  a  peculiarly  delightful  book  of  travels,  "  Eothen." 
He  was  one  of  the  new  men  by  whom  the  circle  in 
Chesterfield  Street  was  constantly  enlarging  itself. 
And  it  is  he,  a  little  later,  whom  we  hear  of  as  host, 
inviting  people  to  eat  whitebait  at  Greenwich  and 
meet  Mrs.  Norton,  Sir  Alexander  and  Lady  Duff 
Gordon,  and  Sidney  Herbert.  One  of  the  guests, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Brookfield,  the  husband  of  Thackeray's 
friend,  writes  thus  about  it  to  his  wife : 

"  I  should  have  gone  to  a  dead  certainty,  and  King- 
lake  vows  that  there  was  nothing  to  hinder  you  going 
(for  I  expressed  my  doubts),  or  nothing  would  have 
induced  him  to  ask  you  (which  of  course  he  would 
not),  that  she  visits  everywhere,  and  he  himself  believes 
nothing  against  her.  Perhaps  she  would  be  described 
as  decidedly  pretty,  with  a  Somerset  nose  ;  a  nice 
person,  very  unaffected,  and  a  shade  free-and-easy, 
but  it  seems  only  the  overflowing  of  an  open 
disposition." 

One  sees  from  this  letter  that  the  old  slanders  were 
not  even  then  so  entirely  appeased  that  they  did  not 
need  a  special  refutation  for  each  new  acquaintance, 
whenever  the  widening  circle  of  her  interests  carried 
her  out  beyond  the  small  class  in  which  she  was  born. 

The  Duff  Gordons  were  also  new  acquaintances  of 
that  summer,  soon  to  grow  into  old  friends ;  indeed, 
one  can  think  of  no  two  women  better  fitted  for  that 
relation  than  Lucie  Austin  and  Caroline  Norton,  both 
so  beautiful,  so  richly  endowed,  so  free  from  all  petty 
shams  and  conventions,  both  shadowed  by  a  tragic 
fate. 

But  all  these  new  interests  never  seem  to  have  inter- 
fered with  the  old  ones.  Indeed,  it  was  part  of  her 
social  instinct  to  sweep  them  all  along  together.  For 
instance,  we  find  the  Duff  Gordons  and  Henry  Reeve 


196  THE   DUFF  GORDONS  [chap,  xv 

and  Mrs.  Norton  all  in  a  box  together  with  Lord 
Melbourne  at  St.  James's  Theatre  in  November  of 
that  same  year,  to  see  the  first  representation  of  Ben 
Jonson's  play  Every  Man  in  His  Humour,  acted 
by  some  of  the  writers  for  Punch  and  other  literary 
men  of  the  time,  notably  Charles  Dickens.  We  are 
told  that  Lord  Melbourne  found  the  play  very  poor, 
with  no  fivdos  in  it — that  was  his  expression ;  till 
suddenly  between  the  acts  he  exclaimed  in  a  stentorian 
voice  heard  across  the  pit,  "  I  knew  this  play  would  be 
dull,  but  that  it  would  be  so  damnably  dull  as  this  I 
did  not  suppose." 

There  is  a  letter  of  Mrs.  Norton,  written  this  same 
November  to  Panizzi,  the  great  librarian  of  the  British 
Museum,  showing  her  at  her  old  task  of  providing 
amusement  of  the  kind  he  liked  best  for  this  same  old 
friend,  the  ex-Prime  Minister  : 

"  Chesterfield  Street, 

"Friday  evening,  November  1845. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Panizzi, 

"  I  met  Lord  Melbourne  at  dinner  to-day,  and 
mentioned  to  him  having  seen  you  and  Mr.  Thackeray. 
He  begged  me  to  write  for  him,  to  ask  you  if  you 
would  dine  with  him  on  Monday,  and  Mr.  Thackeray 
also.  He  has  asked  the  Duff  Gordons  and  Mr.  Fon- 
blanque  for  that  day.  Will  you  let  me  know  as  soon 
as  convenient,  and  will  you,  who  are  an  old  friend  of 
Lord  Melbourne's,  explain  anything  that  may  seem 
odd  or  blunt  in  his  mode  of  inviting  without  intro- 
duction, though  indeed  he  persists  very  obstinately 
that  Mr.  Thackeray  is  a  clergyman,  with  whom  he  is, 
or  ought  to  be,  acquainted.  I  said  I  did  not  think  it 
clerical  to  write  about  the  Bishop  of  Bullochesmithy, 
and  that  I  did  not  think  Mr.  Thackeray  was  a  clergy- 
man at  all ;  but  this  is  not  of  importance  in  comparison 
of  his  coming  to  dinner  at  half-past  seven,  punctual, 
on  Monday. 

"  I  wish  you  would  now  and  then  call  on  Lord 
Melbourne,  as,  since  he  is  invalided,  he  takes  great 
pleasure  in  receiving  his  friends.  I  think  about  four 
o'clock,  or  a  little  later,  when  there  is  no  House  of 


i84S]  THE  CORN   LAWS  197 

Lords,  is  a  good  moment  to  find  him.  Poor  Lady 
Holland's  death  has  deprived  him  of  a  very  near 
neighbour,  where  he  could  be,  without  fatigue  or  form, 
in  pleasant  society,  and,  with  all  her  faults,  she  had 
certainly  a  very  real  regard  for  him. 
"  Believe  me,  dear  Mr.  Panizzi, 

11  Yours  sincerely, 

"  Caroline  Norton." 

Another  name  often  to  be  met  in  any  account  of 
Mrs.  Norton  at  this  time  is  that  of  Sidney  Herbert, 
second  son  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  by  his  Russian 
wife,  Catherine  Woronzow — a  man  about  thirty-seven, 
rather  young  to  be  a  Cabinet  Minister,  whose  high 
responsibilities,  however,  did  not  interfere  with  his 
gaiety  and  charm  of  temper,  or  the  impulses  of  a 
heart  most  easily  touched  by  suffering  in  any  form — 
a  man  among  whose  natural  gifts  was  beauty  so 
gallant,  so  distinguished,  that  it  might  well  have  de- 
scended upon  him  from  that  great  hero  of  his  race, 
Sir  Philip  Sidney. 

London  was  especially  full  that  autumn  of  1845. 
The  failure  of  the  potato  crop  in  the  preceding  summer 
had  renewed  the  question  of  the  Corn  Laws,  which 
the  party  in  power  had  come  in  pledged  to  preserve. 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  however,  was  already  suspected  of 
as  great  a  change  of  mind  on  this  important  party 
question  as  he  had  already  undergone  in  the  matter 
of  Catholic  Emancipation  in  1829 — for  which  earlier 
inconsistency,  by  the  way,  Tories  of  longest  memories 
had  never  quite  forgiven  him.  But  the  Protectionists 
were  by  no  means  confined  to  the  Tory  party. 

Lord  Melbourne  was  bitter  against  repeal,  and  deeply 
prejudiced  against  the  Prime  Minister,  and  so  were 
the  greater  part  of  the  Whig  landed  interest.  It  was 
generally  known  that  all  the  Cabinet  Ministers  had 
been  in  town  ever  since  the  beginning  of  November, 
holding  almost  daily  meetings ;  and  all  the  world, 
both  Whig  and  Tory,  was  eager  to  know  the  subject 
of  their  deliberations,  which  were  carefully  kept  con- 


198  THE  REPEAL  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS   [chap,  xv 

cealed,  till  the  tension  was  suddenly  broken  by  Delane, 
editor  of  the  Times,  in  his  famous  leading  article  of 
December  4,  announcing  confidently  that  the  Cabinet 
was  agreed  to  repeal  the  Corn  Laws ;  that  Parliament 
was  to  be  immediately  convened  for  that  purpose. 

Instantly  the  rumour  rushed  into  circulation  that 
some  one  had  betrayed  a  Government  secret.  Nothing, 
however,  was  further  from  the  truth. 

For  many  years  the  Times  had  been,  if  not  a 
Government  organ,  at  least  a  very  correct  medium  of 
Government  information,  through  the  relation  of  its 
editors — Thomas  Barnes,  and,  on  his  death,  of  his 
successor,  John  Thaddeus  Delane — with  persons  high 
in  office.  In  the  time  of  the  Whigs,  Lord  Brougham 
had  sometimes  furnished  this  official  information  ;  in 
Delane's  case  it  was  Lord  Aberdeen,  Foreign  Secretary 
in  the  Cabinet  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Henry  Reeve, 
best  known  to  us  now  as  the  editor  of  the  "  Greville 
Memoirs,"  was  also  on  the  staff  of  the  Times  in  1845. 
I  quote  from  Reeve's  journal  on  the  subject  of  the 
famous  leading  article  of  December  4  : 

"Early  in  December  Peel  announced  to  his  colleagues 
his  intention  to  repeal  the  Corn  Laws.  Lord  Aberdeen 
told  Delane  of  this  on  December  3,  and  on  December  4 
the  Times  published  it.  The  agitation  was  extreme, 
and  Peel  resigned  on  the  6th,  but  soon  came  back 
again." 

We  may  also  go  to  Mr.  Reeve's  article  on  George 
Meredith's  novels  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  of  January 
1895  to  be  assured  that  the  incident  where  Diana  sells 
a  Government  secret  is  "  in  no  way  founded  on  fact, 
nor  even  suggested  by  facts,  but  by  calumnies  which 
were  exposed  and  refuted,  though  for  a  time  they 
obtained  circulation  and  a  certain  credence." 

The  statement  is  further  emphasised  by  Mr.  Reeve 
in  the  same  article  : 

"  We  observe  with  regret  that  the  late  Sir  William 


i845-6]  DIANA   OF  THE   CROSSWAYS  199 

Gregory,  in  his  interesting  autobiography,  has  revived 
a  calumnious  and  unfounded  anecdote,  to  which  Mr. 
Meredith  had  previously  given  circulation  in  this 
novel.  We  are  enabled  to  state,  and  we  do  state, 
from  our  personal  knowledge,  that  the  story  is  abso- 
lutely false  in  every  particular,  and  that  the  persons 
thus  offensively  referred  to  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  matter.  The  intention  of  the  Government  to 
propose  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  was  communi- 
cated openly  by  Lord  Aberdeen  to  Mr.  Delane,  the 
editor  of  the  Times ;  there  was  no  sort  of  intrigue  or 
bribery  in  the  transaction." 

And,  indeed,  it  seems  impossible  that  it  should  ever 
have  been  believed  by  any  one  in  close  relations  with 
Mrs.  Norton. 

There  have  been  things  equally  unkind,  unjust, 
untrue,  reported  in  the  past  against  her,  but  none,  it 
seems  to  me,  more  utterly  at  variance  with  what  she 
really  was  than  this  last  story.  Signally  impulsive 
and  indiscreet  in  her  own  affairs,  one  can  conceive  of 
no  more  unfit  person  than  she  as  the  repository  for 
an  important  political  secret,  though  with  her  proud 
spirit  and  generous  temper,  trained  and  fortified  as  it 
was  by  intimate  association  with  such  men  as  Lord 
Melbourne  and  Sir  James  Graham,  and  her  own 
brother-in-law,  Lord  Seymour,  it  is  not  only  unlikely, 
but  impossible,  that  she  could  have  made  so  base  a  use 
of  it  as  George  Meredith  excuses  in  the  story  of  a 
woman  in  some  ways  resembling  her. 

Nor  is  she  the  kind  of  woman  to  suffer  slanderous 
attacks  upon  her  reputation  without  some  effort  to 
justify  herself.  She  has  left,  however,  no  word  or 
sign  to  show  that  this  particular  report  ever  came  near 
enough  to  hurt  her.  On  the  contrary,  we  find  her 
writing  to  Lord  Melbourne  early  in  1846,  with  a  mind 
so  free  from  more  painful  preoccupations  that  she  can 
afford  to  get  very  angry  with  her  old  friend  for  mis- 
understanding a  suggestion  of  hers  about  some  plans 
which  were  just  then  occupying  his  leisure. 


200  THE  REPEAL  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS   [chap,  xv 

"  Thursday,  January  22. 

"  I  am  glad  the  interest  in  your  gates  made  yo\i 
write  directly,  but  you  disturbed  yourself  unneces- 
sarily; I  have  no  enthusiasms  which  make  me  forget 
what  you  say  to  me,  and  you  told  me  at  the  time  all 
that  you  have  taken  the  trouble  to  write  per  post.  If 
you  had  read  as  carefully  as  I  listen,  you  would  have 
seen  that  in  my  letter  I  mention  having  promised 
designs,  and  that  I  merely  repeat  the  observations  of 
others  when  I  talk  of  Baldock  and  his  triumphant 
entries.  It  has  since  struck  me  that  as  the  place  is 
in  fact  Mrs.  Lamb's  (and  probably  also  the  projected 
improvements),  her  leisure  would  be  well  employed 
and  her  taste  better  satisfied  by  choosing  them  herself." 

Having  thus  relieved  her  feelings,  she  goes  on  to  a 
light-spirited  arraignment  of  the  attitude  of  her  sex  on 
the  burning  question  of  the  day. 

"  Mrs.  '  S.'  does  not  care  about  politics  for  the  best 
of  all  reasons,  which  is,  that  she  cannot  by  any  effort 
be  brought  to  comprehend  them,  even  in  the  shallow 
way  we  women  do.  She  takes  them  as  Helen  [Lady 
Dufferin]  does,  only  that  Helen  could  understand 
them.     Nell's  way  I  will  recount. 

"  Helen  was  ill  in  bed  ;  I  thought  Blank's  epistle 
might  amuse  her,  and  took  it  accordingly.  She  put 
out  one  hand  in  a  languid,  deprecating  manner,  and 
said  :  '  Don't  look  so  eager,  Caroline  ;  and,  above  all 
things,  don't  read  it  to  me  if  there  are  any  politics  in 
it,  for  I  know  I  shall  be  bored  and  tired  to  death.' 

"  As  to  S.,  you  are  wrong  if  you  think  him  stupid. 
He  may  be  wrong-headed,  but  he  is  a  fine-spirited 
creature,  full  of  information,  though  habitually  silent ; 
and  those  who  are  against  you  may  well  be  with  you. 
Mrs.  S.  has  a  number  of  set  phrases  of  the  'jobbing' 
of  the  Whigs  and  the  'dishonesty  of  the  Whigs,'  etc., 
but  neither  for  the  past  nor  for  the  present  has  she  a 
definite  idea." 


We  catch  just  a  glimpse  of  her  a  little  later  in  the 
year  from  Lord  Malmesbury's  Diary  : 


1846]  SIDNEY   HERBERT  201 

"March  1846. 

"  We  took  a  box  at  the  Opera  with  Lady  Seymour, 
and  went  afterwards  to  Lady  Palmerston's.  Mr. 
Sidney  Herbert  was  there,  and  came  up  to  me  in  a 
great  state  of  excitement,  saying  that  my  conduct  in 
leaving  Peel  was  unworthy  a  gentleman,  that  the 
whole  Protectionist  party  were  a  set  of  fools,  and 
Lord  S.  the  greatest  fool  among  us  ;  and  that  Peel 
was  delighted  at  having  got  rid  of  us.  In  short,  he 
said  everything  that  was  obnoxious.  If  he  had  not 
been  in  such  a  frantic  passion,  I  should  probably  not 
have  been  able  to  keep  my  temper,  but  there  was 
something  so  absurd  in  his  unprovoked  attack  that 
I  retained  perfect  command  over  myself.  It  was  cer- 
tainly very  extraordinary,  as  I  had  not  spoken  to  him 
that  evening,  or  seen  him  since  he  came  to  London, 
and  had  given  him  no  provocation  whatever.  He  is 
generally  careful  of  what  he  says  ;  in  fact,  he  carries 
caution  to  that  degree  that  he  is  famous  for  it.  We 
met  again  at  the  tea-table  that  evening,  when  Mrs. 
Norton  joined  us,  and  by  that  time  Mr.  Herbert  had 
recovered  his  good  temper." 

Even  at  this  late  day  we  recognise  the  old  Sheridan 
habit  of  drifting  together  into  one  group  in  their  own 
and  other  people's  houses,  and  their  old  readiness  for 
admiring  each  other's  social  qualities.  Between  1845 
and  1848  Lady  Dufferin  was  also  settled  in  London  at 
29,  Lower  Brook  Street,  where  her  son  was  still  at 
school  and  college. 

"  There  is  nothing  like  her,"  says  Caroline  in  a  letter 
to  a  mutual  friend.  "  I  mean  as  to  agreeability,  for  I 
hold  myself  quite  as  valuable  a  companion  in  the  long 
run ;  but  I  don't  think  I  am  fit  to  whisk  the  dust  off 
her  satin  slipper  in  general  society." 

And  the  eldest  brother,  Brinsley,  also  made  another 
Sheridan  centre  in  the  house  in  Grosvenor  Square, 
which  his  wife  would  have  been  the  last  person  in  the 
world  to  speak  of  as  belonging  to  her  rather  than  to 
her  husband.     There  is  a  pretty  little  glimpse  of  them 

26 


202         RELATIONS   WITH   HER  CHILDREN  [chap,  xv 

all,   given   in   Sir    Henry    Taylor's    Correspondence, 
where  Mrs.  Brinsley  is  especially  noticed  : 

11 1  thought  her  very  pretty.  They  say  her  beauty 
has  come  to  her  since  her  marriage,  and  that  it  is 
owing  to  her  connection  with  the  Sheridans.  Her 
eyes  are  really  very  fine  when  one  comes  to  look 
into  them." 

A  long  letter  of  Mrs.  Norton's,  written  to  her 
mother  in  the  late  winter  of  1846,  with  the  heading, 
"  Let  Marcia  read  this  to  you,"  is  another  proof  of 
the  affectionate  intimacy  which  united  all  the  members 
of  the  connection  at  this  time  : 

"Dearest  Mother, 

"  I  am  very  glad  indeed  to  think  poor  Charlie 
is  out  of  his  illness ;  and  now  he  has  the  spring  and 
summer  all  before  him  to  get  well  in,  I  hope  he  will 
pick  up  flesh  and  etrength.  The  last  two  days  these 
lovely  little  drawing-rooms  have  been  full  of  sunshine, 
so  I  hope  even  in  the  country  there  is  fine  weather. 

"  My  lads  left  me  yesterday  evening,  so  that  here  is 
my  first  leisure  day,  and  the  first  day  for  some  weeks 
the  Times  newspaper  has  no  spell  in  the  column  of 
•Exhibitions'  and  'Holiday  Amusements.'" 

The  rest  of  the  letter  shows  some  of  the  difficulties 
which  continued  to  confront  her  in  her  relations  with 
her  children,  of  whom  the  elder,  at  least,  was  rapidly 
growing  from  a  boy  into  a  man. 

"They  are  not  to  be  with  me  next  holidays,  or  a 
very  small  portion,  as  the  young  Baronet,  Sir  Robert 
Menzies  [their  cousin],  is  to  be  married  in  June  to  a 
pretty  girl.  .  .  .  He  goes  to  Italy  immediately  after 
his  marriage,  to  remain  some  time. 

"  Meanwhile,  he  writes  and  invites  the  boys  to  come 
and  'jubilatify'  for  a  month  in  the  Highlands,  im- 
mediately on  his  marriage ;  and,  of  course,  it  is  all 
fair,  though  I  regret  not  seeing  them,  and  feel  some 
anxiety  about  Fletcher,  to  whom  they  all  behave  in  a 
manner  that  would  amaze  you,  if  you  consider  how 


1846]  LETTER  TO   HER  MOTHER  203 

little  consequence,  after  all,  he  ever  can  assume,  and 
what  a  good  life  Norton's  is.  I  know  it  amazes  me, 
and  has  been  more  or  less  a  worry  to  me  these  holi- 
days, as  James  Norton  [one  of  his  uncles]  is  perpetu- 
ally endeavouring  to  '  keep  him  in  sight.'  He  gets 
him  down  for  a  day  or  two  to  his  place,  overwhelms 
him  with  civilities,  loads  him  on  his  return  with  home- 
made bread,  asparagus,  and  other  things  for  me,  and 
speaks  of  me  with  respectful  regret  as  being  so  unjustly 
acharnee  against  him.  He  also  takes  him  out  morning 
and  evening  in  town,  sometimes  leaving  him  to  finish 
his  walk  alone,  which  fidgets  me  and  provokes  me, 
because  1  have  sometimes  sate  till  four  or  five  in  the 
afternoon,  expecting  him  back  every  minute,  and  not 
knowing  whether  to  go  out  or  not ;  and  the  day  I 
expected  him  back  from  the  country  he  remained 
where  he  was,  on  invitation,  without  his  father,  con- 
trary to  my  agreement  with  Norton,  which  is,  that 
they  shall  not  visit  his  family  from  my  house  except 
with  him. 

11  Nothing,  meanwhile,  can  be  kinder,  more  tender, 
or  more  sweet-tempered  than  Fletcher  is  to  me,  even 
in  little  matters.  Last  night  he  sent  the  servant  for 
cigars ;  I  scolded,  but  thought  no  more  of  it  than  as 
a  petty  vexation :  after  he  was  gone,  I  found  on  my 
table,  directed  to  me,  the  parcel  of  tobacco  I  would 
not  take  from  him.  I  have  nothing  to  complain  of,  but 
he  is  evidently  and  naturally  won  by  the  great  atten- 
tion paid  him  by  his  father's  people.  His  abilities 
are  evidently  very  good,  and  he  did  in  two  days  the 
task  that  was  given  to  occupy  him  for  the  holidays ; 
4  more's  the  pity,'  thought  I,  '  to  do  it  so  easily  and  so 
carelessly.' 

11  Brinny  has,  I  think,  made  a  great  start  in  mind 
and  character;  and  there  is  a  sturdy  earnestness  and 
unselfishness  about  him  very  lovable.  I  do  not  know 
how  many  uncomfortable  mothers  have  applied  to 
their  own  sons  the  beautiful  passage  put  into  Queen 
Constance's  mouth  by  Shakespeare,  when  speaking  of 
her  Arthur;  but  certainly,  except  the  gift  of  beauty, 
which  is,  after  all,  only  a  temptation,  I  think  no 
woman  ever  had  a  more  hopeful  son  than  my  Brin  in 
everything  that  nature  can  bestow.  Lately,  on  the 
matters  I  have  been  scribbling  about,  he  talked  to 


2<h        RELATIONS   WITH   HER  CHILDREN  [chap,  xv 

me  as  any  grown  man  might  have  done,  and  in  the 
language  of  a  grown  person.  It  was  when  I  had 
waited  one  day,  and  I  could  not  help  saying  at  last, 
1  Dear  me,  Brin ;  it  will  be  a  great  vexation  to  me  if 
I  am  to  be  made  a  second  object  in  Fletcher's  mind  to 
James  and  your  father's  relations.'  I  wish  you  could 
have  heard  Brin,  who  spoke  for  eight  or  ten  minutes 
really  in  the  prepared  manner  of  a  man.  He  said  he 
1  had  observed '  that  I  had  been  annoyed  several  times, 
but  did  not  like  to  broach  the  subject  to  me ;  that  he 
was  sure  Fletcher  loved  me  as  well  as  he  did  himself, 
and  preferred  my  company  to  that  of  any  human  being, 
but  that  he  was,  as  he  considered,  'an  awfully  weak 
fellow,'  and  ashamed  to  refuse  an  invitation,  or  seem 
under  control ;  that  he  was  a  boy  in  my  house,  and 
treated  as  a  man  elsewhere,  which  was  a  temptation 
to  him,  and  a  temptation  that  would  cease  when  he 
was  really  a  man. 

"  He  added  as  to  the  people  I  naturally  disliked  ;  but 
here  I  will  give  you  his  own  exact  expressions. 

'"As  to  those  people,  mother,  I  don't  think  you 
need  be  so  alarmed  about  him ;  for  all  they  say  to  him 
is  always  to  defend  and  excuse  themselves  about  you, 
and  to  assure  him  they  do  not  think  ill  of  you,  some- 
times that  they  never  did  think  ill  of  you,  sometimes 
that  they  now  are  convinced  they  were  mistaken. 
That  cannot  lower  you  to  him.  I  think  it  does  good  ; 
you  are  never  abused  to  us  now.  For  myself,  I  draw 
the  line.  The  lawyers  and  people  of  that  sort — Kelly, 
Fladgate — who  come  to  my  father's  house,  I  bow  to. 
If  they  notice  me,  I  show  by  my  manner  that  I  do 
not  wish  to  be  noticed  by  them.  I  never  talk  or  laugh 
with  them.  ...  I  always  come  back  punctually  to  you 
the  day  or  hour  you  expect  us ;  I  am  not  ashamed  to 
give  it  as  my  reason,  and  my  only  one,  for  leaving. 
I  have  now  and  then  asked  Fletcher  to  be  spokesman. 
I  don't  like  having  it  always  to  say,  because  it  makes 
me  appear  less  fond  of  my  father  and  his  company 
than  Fletcher,  but  I  do  it  because  it  must  be  done.' 

"Afterwards,  when  I  said  till  he  was  older  he  could 
not  comprehend  all  the  bitterness  I  must  feel  to  James 
and  those  who  helped  Norton,  he  said  earnestly  :  '  Not 
the  exact  case  perhaps,  mother;  but  oh,  I  can  under- 
stand the  misery  of  any  disgrace.'" 


1846]  LETTER  TO   HER  MOTHER  205 

She  goes  on  to  talk  about  her  new  engagements  with 
the  proprietor  of  the  Drawing-room  Scrap-book  : 

"  Fisher  von  der  Scrap-book  wants  to  engage  me 
also  for  a  prose  Christmas  book.  Like  the  old  woman 
who  said  she  had  many  blessings,  but  Heaven  took  it 
out  of  her  in  corns,  he  has  been  liberal,  but  takes  it 
out  of  me  in  time ;  as  he  requires  my  undivided  atten- 
tion to  my  duties,  both  for  writing  and  the  engravings, 
and  to  sit  for  my  own  picture  an  hour  a  day,  and  to 
be  painted  in  miniature  on  marble — a  surface  which  is 
delicate,  but  colder,  I  think,  than  ivory." 

The  letter  concludes  with  an  absurd  account  of  some 
of  her  housekeeping  difficulties  : 

"I  am  deeply  immersed  in  those  red  account  books 
which  take  up  so  much  of  Georgia's  time  when  she 
leaves  town,  my  cook  being  about  to  leave  me.  She 
is  a  worthy  and  intelligent  cook,  but  loves  not  to  clean 
my  dining-room,  and  is  a  most  sulky  pig  and  full  of 
dignity;  insomuch  that  a  former  fat  cook  of  mine, 
having  sent  to  say  she  was  dying  and  hoped  I  would 
assist  her,  she  would  not  give  the  message  to  me 
because  the  petitioner  had  asked  not  for  her  but  for 
Childe's  wife  [the  wife  of  Mrs.  Norton's  coachman], 
whereupon  the  fat  cook  died  unassisted.  Now  it  hap- 
pened that  I  was  fond  of  that  fat  cook  (a  most  good- 
natured  old  soul,  who  walked  back  two  hot  miles, 
when  she  left  me,  because  she  had  forgotten  to  say 
how  the  racoon  was  to  be  fed,  that  I  used  to  keep). 
I  therefore  pronounced  a  '  commination  '  on  the  hard- 
hearted present  cook,  and  '  hoped  she  would  die  in  the 
workhouse,  and  send  a  message  in  vain  to  some,  one 
on  whom  she  depended  for  assistance.'  She  showed  a 
most  flouncing  dignity  and  no  feeling  at  all,  and  alto- 
gether we  could  not  love  each  other  any  more." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

NEW  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND — FLETCHER'S  ILLNESS — 
DEATH   OF   LORD   MELBOURNE 

The  spring  of  1847  brought  new  bereavement  to  the 
Sheridan  family,  when  the  youngest  brother,  Charles, 
on  whose  recovery  from  illness  Mrs.  Norton  had  so 
earnestly  congratulated  her  mother,  died  of  consump- 
tion at  the  hotel  of  the  British  Embassy  in  Paris, 
where  he  had  for  some  time  held  the  position  of 
Secretary  of  Legation. 

His  nephew,  Lord  Dufferin,  tells  us  : 

11  He  was  perhaps  the  handsomest  of  all  the  Sheridan 
men,  and  an  enchanting  companion.  Even  when  already 
enfeebled  by  the  fell  disease  which  destroyed  his  father 
and  beautiful  grandmother,  I  remember  him  sitting  in 
one  of  the  drawing-rooms  of  the  Embassy  when  a  ball 
was  going  on,  surrounded  by  a  circle  of  men  and 
ladies,  kept  away  from  the  dancing  by  his  sallies." 

His  death  in  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  age  was  a  grief 
to  all  that  were  left  of  that  beautiful  group  of  brothers 
and  sisters,  and  must  have  come  as  a  sort  of  conclusion 
to  the  gay  story  of  their  youth. 

As  a  frontispiece  to  Fisher's  Scrap-book  for  1848, 
we  find  Mrs.  Norton's  portrait,  a  line  engraving  by 
Ross,  which  represents  her  full-face,  with  a  strange 
immobility  of  expression  which  never  could  have  been 
really  like  her.  Yet  in  many  ways  it  seems  the  most 
206 


1847]  FLETCHER   NORTON  207 

satisfactory  of  her  many  likenesses;  the  most  tragic 
and  yet  the  most  noble.  The  eyes  are  wonderful,  deep 
pools  of  almost  brooding  sadness.  The  mouth,  with 
its  short  upper  lip,  and  full,  drooping  curves,  is  very 
sweet.  A  frame  of  dark  smooth  hair,  with  the  charac- 
teristic little  velvet  band  across  her  forehead,  adds  to 
the  severity  of  the  outlines.  A  beautiful  face,  but  no 
longer  that  of  a  very  young  woman. 

And,  indeed,  the  troubles  and  anxieties  peculiar  to 
middle  age  were  already  thickening  around  her.  At 
the  time  of  her  brother's  death  her  eldest  son,  Fletcher 
Norton,  was  a  youth  of  nineteen.  His  cousin,  Lord 
Dufferin,  describes  him  as  the  one  of  his  generation 
who  showed  the  most  of  that  peculiar  grace  and  light- 
ness of  wit  which  seems  the  birthright  of  the  Sheridan 
family,  modified  and  softened,  however,  by  the  most 
exquisite  gentleness  and  tact.  He  had  been  a  very 
delicate  child  and  boy,  but  his  frequent  illnesses  made 
even  closer  the  link  between  him  and  his  mother,  whose 
joy  and  pride  he  was  ;  and,  as  he  grew  older,  he  became 
her  intimate  and  chosen  companion.  He  had  inherited 
many  of  her  gifts— her  taste  for  music,  her  warm  and 
ready  sympathies,  her  gaiety,  tempered,  in  his  case, 
by  a  strong  religious  tendency,  even  as  a  boy  in  Eton. 
Indeed,  it  was  probably  at  Eton  (very  much  influenced 
by  the  Oxford  movement  during  his  last  years  there) 
that  he  received  his  first  impulse  towards  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  of  which  he  died  a  member. 

It  was  decided  that  he  should  go  from  Eton  directly 
into  diplomacy,  and  he  received  his  first  appointment 
to  one  of  the  minor  positions  in  the  British  Legation 
in  Lisbon,  under  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour,  in  the 
autumn  of  1847. 

The  summer  before  he  entered  upon  his  new  duties, 
his  mother  was  permitted  to  take  him  abroad  with  her; 
no  doubt  under  the  conditions  usually  imposed  by  her 
husband  on  such  occasions — that  she  paid  all  the 
expenses  of  the  trip. 

The  next  summer,    1848,  he  was  with   her  again, 


2o8     NEW  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND    [chap,  xvi 

invalided  back  from  Lisbon  ;  and,  indeed,  except  for 
his  health,  it  must  have  been  a  relief  to  an  anxious 
mother  to  have  her  son  safe  in  England  during  that 
year  of  revolutions  abroad. 

It  was  during  this  same  summer  of  1848  that  George 
Norton  at  last  approached  his  wife  through  his  solicitor 
for  her  long-desired  consent  to  his  plan  to  raise  money 
on  her  settlement. 

In  every  climax  of  this  one  great  subject  of  dis- 
cord and  disaster  between  these  two  people,  viz.  his 
obligations  for  her  support,  there  were  plenty  of 
faults  on  both  sides,  but  always  with  a  difference  in 
her  favour. 

Her  imprudent  outbursts  against  her  husband — 
which  seldom  took  any  form  but  bitter,  violent  words 
— seem  almost  the  necessary  result  of  bringing  a 
generous,  impulsive  nature  into  unwilling  contact  with 
a  strangely  base,  unworthy  one ;  while  he,  on  his  side, 
never  lost  a  chance  of  taking  advantage  of  every  oppor- 
tunity afforded  him  by  her  angry  impatience  under  his 
endless  withdrawals  and  double-dealings,  to  drive  a 
hard,  even  an  unjust  bargain  with  her. 

In  this  case  he  applied  to  Fletcher,  still  invalided 
home  with  his  mother,  to  press  the  desired  conditions 
upon  her.  Perhaps  he  did  not  realise  the  peculiar 
aggravation  it  would  be  to  his  wife's  spirit  to  have 
this  boy  thus  mingled  in  the  haggling  and  bargaining 
which  had  become  so  hopelessly  necessary  in  all 
attempts  of  his  parents  to  come  to  an  understanding. 
But  whether  he  realised  it  or  not,  it  entirely  served 
his  purpose.  As  she  says  herself:  "As  soon  as  my 
son  interfered,  I  made  haste  to  yield :  I  wrote  to 
Mr.  Leman,  who  acted  as  solicitor  for  my  trustees, 
to  say  that  I  consented  to  all  Mr.  Norton  proposed — 
mainly  because  it  is  intolerable  to  me  to  have  my  son 
talk  over  matters  of  this  kind  from  his  father." 

But  this  time  it  was  to  be  a  formal  regular  separation, 
with  all  the  trustees  and  safeguards  prescribed  by 
custom.     And  this  time  it  was  the  gentleman  who  was 


1848]  LEGAL  SEPARATION  209 

to  have  been  her  trustee  who  declined  to  be  a  party  to 
conditions  he  thought  too  notoriously  unfair  to  the 
legally  non-existent  wife  whom  he  was  to  represent  in 
the  agreement. 

Upon  this  Mrs.  Norton,  with  characteristic  im- 
patience and  imprudence,  declared  that  if  she  could 
not  obtain  a  legal  separation,  she  was  perfectly  willing 
to  sign  any  other  kind  of  deed  or  bond  which  could  be 
taken  as  a  substitute  for  it.  A  deed  was  accordingly 
drawn  up  by  Mr.  Norton's  solicitor. 

By  this  deed  she  bound  herself  to  give  her  consent 
to  the  mortgage  of  the  trust  property,  and  agreed  to 
certain  conditions  dictated  by  her  husband,  chiefly  in 
regard  to  his  liability  for  her  debts — while  he  on  his 
part  bound  himself  to  pay  her  a  yearly  allowance  of 
^"500  instead  of  £400  as  heretofore  till  Lord  Grantley's 
death,  when  his  own  succession  to  the  peerage  would 
give  an  opportunity  for  a  more  favourable  arrange- 
ment for  his  wife ;  promising,  further,  never  again  to 
interfere  with  her  affairs. 

She  was  too  impatient  even  to  wait  in  town  till  the 
deed  was  drawn  up,  but  had  it  sent  after  her  to 
Scotland  for  her  signature,  after  it  had  been  signed 
by  Mr.  Norton  and  the  solicitor,  Mr.  Leman.  The 
witness  for  her  signature  seems  to  have  been  the 
Hon.  Edmund  Phipps,  a  connection  by  marriage  of 
George  Norton  and  a  personal  friend  of  her  own. 

Her  son  had  by  that  time  returned  to  his 
position  in  Lisbon ;  but  she  was  still  wretchedly 
unhappy  about  him,  and  we  find  her  back  in  London 
at  the  beginning  of  November  writing  to  Abraham 
Hay  ward. 

"  November  6,  184S. 

11  Dear  Avocat, 

"  Lord  Melbourne,  in  his  letter  of  this  morning, 
begs  me  to  persuade  you  to  come  to  Brocket.  I  am 
sure  if  you  have  leisure  you  will  need  no  persuading, 
and  having  now  become  an  fait  as  to  his  odd  ways, 
will  simply  write  him  a  note  saying  I  have  immedi- 

27 


210  FLETCHER'S   ILLNESS  [chap,  xvi 

ately  given  you  his  message,  and  that  you  could  come 
down  for  a  few  days  on  such  a  day  as  he  likes,  and 
will  come  if  you  hear  nothing  to  the  contrary. 

"  I  feel  very  dreary  and  disheartened,  what  with 
Fletcher's  illness  and  one  thing  and  another.  I  can't 
abide  to  be  talked  utilitarianism  to  (on  that  account). 
Adieu,  good  Avocat.  We  are  off  on  Thursday  at 
latest  for  tranquil  Frampton." 

That  she  had  good  reason  for  some  of  these  dreary 
feelings  was  proved  by  the  news  received  by  her  from 
Portugal  almost  immediately  after  the  date  of  this 
letter,  that  her  son  was  seriously  ill  again,  dying 
perhaps.  It  was  an  emergency  that  could  not  be 
met  by  prudence  or  practical  expediency.  She  gave 
up  all  her  engagements  with  her  publishers,  her  plans 
for  new  work,  and  began  to  prepare  for  instant 
departure  for  Portugal.  Her  old  friend,  Lord  Mel- 
bourne, was  struck  with  paralysis  and  died  without 
her  ever  seeing  him  again.  She  received  the  news  of 
his  death  two  weeks  before  she  sailed,  about  the 
middle  of  December,  in  the  steam-packet  which  plied 
between  Lisbon  and  Great  Britain.  Her  younger  son, 
Brinsley,  went  with  her. 

But  Fletcher  did  not  die.  His  mother  had  the 
extreme  happiness  of  nursing  him  back  to  life  again. 
Gradually  she  saw  him  grow  stronger,  able  to  move 
from  his  bed  to  his  sofa,  and  then  to  play  a  little  on 
his  guitar  and  listen  to  her  singing.  But  he  was 
still  far  from  having  recovered,  still  too  weak  for  the 
passage  home,  when  she  wrote  the  following  letter  to 
Sir  Alexander  Duff  Gordon  to  congratulate  him  on 
the  birth  of  a  son. 

"  Lisbon,  June  9,  1849. 
"  Dear  Semi-Hub, 

"  I  would  have  delighted  in  being  Maurice's 
godmother.  I  thought  of  asking  Lucie,  but  then  I 
bethought  me,  '  Lo !  'tis  a  male  child,  and  a  Hidalgo, 
and  there  will  be  some  family  grandee  invited  to  the 
dignity  of  being  the  fat  darling's  godmother,'  so  I 
desisted. 


1849]  PORTUGUESE  SOCIETY  211 

11 1  am  most  glad  that  Lucie  goes  on  well.  How 
often  I  wish  for  you  both,  I  cannot  say ;  sometimes 
selfishly,  for  me,  sometimes  for  your  own  sakes. 
Fletcher  is  too  weak,  Harry  Howard  too  lazy  and 
dispirited  to  see  any  of  the  sights  of  Lisbon,  and 
Brownie  (hear  it,  oh  Punch)  is  too  fine  to  like  walking 
with  me  and  my  donkey,  and  says  '  ladies  in  a  foreign 
capital '  ought  not  to  ride  donkeys.  Often  I  am 
reduced  to  converse  with  the  faithful  Childe  [Mrs. 
Norton's  maid]  who,  after  a  pause/  thus  renews  the 
topics  of  the  day  :  '  I  beg  your  pardon,  ma'am,  but  is 
it  true  Her  Majesty  has  been  shot  at  ? '  'I  beg  your 
pardon,  ma'am,  but  there  is  most  astonishing  shabby 
turnouts  among  the  noblemen's  carriages  in  this 
country,'  an  observation  which  chimes  in  with  my 
own  opinions,  and  which  I  therefore  receive  with  the 
more  cordiality. 

"  I  had  a  woman  friend,  very  intelligent ;  but  what 
with  her  constant  rehearsals  for  private  theatricals 
and  performances  of  love  (already  some  years  re- 
hearsed) with  a  velvet-eyed  Spanish  attache  here,  I 
see  little  of  her. 

"The  Pope's  nuncio  is  a  great  friend,  but  he  has 
bursts  of  absence  (during  which,  I  believe,  he  does 
penance  for  our  interviews— to  no  purpose),  re- 
appearing gay,  boyish,  and  sinful,  like  an  otter  coming 
up  to  breathe. 

"  The  Portuguese  society  is  stiff  and  disjointed — 
indeed,  it  ain't  jointed  at  all— only  stiff;  every  one 
civil,  smiling,  and  apparently  anxious,  if  they  knew 
how,  to  Her  amitie  with  you,  but  never  an  inch  nearer. 
A  Portuguese  gentleman  told  me  it  was  not  unusual 
to  see  a  lady  in  the  winter  and  dance  with  her  several 
nights,  and  never  meet  her  again  till  the  winter  after. 
They  hardly  ever  visit,  or  receive  visits — never  men, 
at  least  in  very  few  Portuguese  families.  The  women 
meet  with  apparent  cordiality,  kiss  each  other,  and 
then  sit  down  in  a  formal  row,  never  stir  afterwards 
the  whole  evening,  and  seldom  speak  even  to  those  they 
have  just  embraced.  Nobody  reads  or  writes.  They 
sing  sometimes,  and  always  look  out  of  the  window. 
I  am  sure  it  is  good  for  the  eyes  to  be  ignorant,  and  to 
stare  out  of  the  window,  for  oh,  the  pretty  eyes  I  see 
here  among  the  women  !— the  look  of  mingled  laziness, 


212  FLETCHER'S   ILLNESS  [chap,  xvi 

curiosity,  and  passion,  which  replaces  the  English 
intelligence  and  good  behaviour  of  expression.  I  think 
the  Infanta's  daughter,  Comtesse  Quinares,  has  the 
most  beautiful  eyes  that  ever  opened  on  the  world, 
like  pools  among  the  dead  brown  autumn  leaves  on  a 
warm  summer  night,  with  stars  looking  down  into 
them. 

M  Love  to  Lucie  and  the  children. 

"  Your  affectionate 

"Carry." 

But  though  able  to  make  such  amusing  material 
of  her  experiences  in  Portugal  while  writing  to  her 
friends,  there  was  much  to  make  that  winter  of  exile 
a  time  of  very  bitter  memories  for  her. 

It  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  her  husband  would 
be  any  special  help  or  comfort  on  such  an  occasion, 
fond  and  proud  as  he  seems  to  have  been  of  his  eldest 
son.  For  emergency  always  seemed  to  bring  out  the 
meaner  side  of  this  strange,  selfish  being  with  whom 
her  own  life  was  so  fatally  entangled. 

He  allowed  his  wife  to  bear  all  the  extraordinary 
expenses  entailed  by  Fletcher's  long,  dangerous  illness, 
and  by  her  own  enforced  residence  in  Lisbon  while 
nursing  her  son  back  to  life  ;  he  refused  even  to  repay 
a  small  sum  of  money  she  had  been  obliged  to  borrow 
from  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour  while  making  her  pre- 
parations to  bring  the  invalid  back  to  England. 

But  the  resentment  she  no  doubt  felt  and  expressed 
against  her  husband  on  this  occasion  did  not  prevent 
her  from  receiving  him  with  perfect  friendliness  in 
Chesterfield  Street  when  he  came  there  to  visit  his 
son.  Indeed,  throughout  her  long  life  nothing  is  more 
remarkable  than  the  way  in  which  even  reasonable 
bitterness  against  injury  melted,  whenever  the  occasion 
demanded,  into  the  kindest  actions. 

George  Norton  himself  mentioned  a  little  incident 
which  occurred  at  this  time  when  husband  and  wife 
met  almost  daily  in  their  son's  sick-room. 

"  I  was  remarking  to   him   [Fletcher]  that   I   was 


1849]  LORD   MELBOURNE'S   LEGACY  213 

about  taking  a  new  lease  for  my  house  [in  Wilton 
Place]  when  she  said,  '  What  nonsense,  when  there  is 
a  room  for  you  here.' " 

But  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  understand  or 
appreciate  her  impulsive  hospitality.  He  hurried 
to  put  it  down  to  some  base  ulterior  motive  on 
her  part. 

Her  most  pressing  need  for  money  was  unexpectedly 
relieved,  though  not  by  him. 

When  Lord  Melbourne  died,  the  preceding  autumn, 
he  left,  beside  his  will,  a  letter  to  his  brother  Lord 
Beauvale,  giving  certain  pecuniary  directions  in  favour 
of  Lady  Brandon  and  Mrs.  Norton,  and  containing 
a  solemn  declaration  that  what  he  had  instructed  the 
Attorney-General  to  say  on  his  trial  as  to  the  latter's 
purity  was  true.  He  said  that  as  his  indiscretion  had 
exposed  her  to  obloquy  and  suspicion,  he  was  bound 
to  renew  this  declaration. 

Mrs.  Norton  herself  relates  how  the  first  payment 
of  this  legacy  became  due  in  the  autumn  of  her  return 
from  Lisbon, — 

"  when  I  was  thinking  where  we  should  have  to  go 
next  :  to  Madeira,  or  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  to  see 
my  son  die  as  my  father  had  died  :  when  I  was  already 
well  aware  of  the  uselessness  of  appealing  to  my 
husband  to  bear  his  share  of  all  that  unusual  expense." 

It  was  not  a  time,  one  will  agree,  to  refuse  such 
welcome  aid  out  of  pride,  or  fine-drawn  scruples. 

"  I  was  simply  glad,"  she  confesses  "  (let  those  sneer 
at  it  who  please),  that  with  such  a  husband  and  such 
a  destiny  of  never-ending  troubles,  the  family  of  the 
man  in  whose  name  I  had  suffered  so  much  were 
willing  to  prove,  not  for  my  sake,  but  for  his,  that  his 
kindness  to  me  outlived  him." 

The  next  year  she  spent  abroad  with  her  invalid 
son,   drifting  about  in  search  of  health,  which  for  a 


2i4  THE  QUEEN   OF   HOLLAND         [chap,  xvi 

while  at  least,  was  to  be  successful.  Part  of  this  time 
she  was  with  her  sister,  Lady  Dufferin.  And  during 
this  period  of  foreign  travel  began  her  very  real 
friendship  with  the  Queen  of  Holland,  wife  of 
William  III. 

We  get  a  charming  impression  of  this  royal  personage 
a  few  years  later  from  Motley's  Letters. 

"August  1856. 
"  She  is  tall  and  very  fair,  and  must  have  had  a  great 
deal  of  blonde,  German  beauty.  Her  voice  is  agree- 
able, and  she  speaks  English,  not  only  with  great 
elegance  and  fluency,  but  almost  without  foreign 
accent.  We  talked  a  good  deal  too  about  Mrs.  Norton, 
of  whom  she  expressed  the  most  unbounded  admiration 
for  her  genius  and  the  charm  of  her  conversation." 

At  the  time  of  her  first  relations  with  Mrs.  Norton 
the  Queen  must  have  been  a  woman  of  about  thirty-two, 
saddened  by  the  loss  of  her  second  son  while  still 
quite  a  little  child.  It  was  perhaps  some  such  human 
link  which  made  the  very  human  relation  between  this 
queen  and  this  English  stranger. 

The  long  sojourn  abroad  was  broken  for  Mrs.  Norton 
by  an  illness  of  Mrs.  Sheridan's  in  the  autumn  of  1850, 
an  illness  so  serious  as  to  summon  the  daughter  home 
to  England.  Mrs.  Sheridan  rallied  for  a  time,  though 
she  never  really  recovered,  and  died  at  last  in  June 
1 85 1 ;  and  during  the  whole  winter  of  1 850-1  we  find 
Mrs.  Norton  near  her  mother  in  her  old  house  in 
Chesterfield  Street. 


Snuvy^WaU^  5*.^ 


.  U"  ofkeridcui 

irx^rti  the  draunna  by  Jekn  cstcbuter 


CHAPTER  XVII 

STIRLING   OF    KEIR — "  STUART   OF   DUNLEATH  " 

Mrs.  Norton's  return  to  England  was  chronicled  by 
her  old  friend,  Abraham  Hayward,  in  a  letter  to  one  of 
his  friends  : 

'■'■November  2,  1850. 
"  Mrs.    Norton    is    in    town,    escorted    back    from 
Brussels  by  Milnes  and  Stirling." 

The  first-named  of  these  was  an  old  acquaintance, 
the  poet  Monckton  Milnes,  afterwards  Lord  Houghton, 
whose  peculiar  form  of  wit  is  mischievously  charac- 
terised by  Mrs.  Norton's  nickname  for  him,  "  The  Bird 
of  Paradox." 

The  other  was  Stirling  of  Keir,  afterwards  Sir 
William  Stirling-Maxwell,  the  man  who  was  to  be, 
many  years  later,  her  second  husband — a  young 
Scotsman,  who  had  won  a  name  as  a  writer  in  a 
comparatively  unknown  field  of  scholarship  on  the 
appearance  of  his  first  important  work,  "  Annals  of 
the  Artists  in  Spain."  This  friendship,  so  much  closer 
and  more  lasting  than  those  that  came  before  and 
after  it,  would  seem  to  have  sprung  up  and  flourished 
in  the  very  unlikeness  of  the  two  natures  thus  drawn 
to  one  another.  He  was  a  High  Churchman  and  a 
Tory ;  a  man  of  an  exquisitely  fastidious  scholarship, 
which  kept  him  recasting  and  polishing  what  he 
215 


216  STIRLING  OF   KEIR  [chap,  xvii 

happened  to  be  writing,  till  he  died  with  his  principal 
work  still  unfinished  ;  a  man  of  method,  a  collector 
with  a  passion  for  small  and  fanciful  details,  with 
an  intense  pride  of  family  and  inheritance,  as  is  shown 
by  the  quaint  epitaph  he  once  wrote  on  himself: 

"  Here  lies  Stirling  of  Keir, 
A  very  good  man,  but  queer. 
If  you  want  to  find  a  queerer, 
You  must  dig  up  a  Stirling  of  Keirer." 

Very  gentle,  and  kind,  and  unobtrusive,  yet  exceed- 
ingly pertinacious  to  obtain  what  he  once  set  his  mind 
on  ;  warmly  liked  by  his  friends,  especially  his  men- 
friends — "  the  prince  of  good  fellows  "  the  American 
Ticknor  calls  him  ;  with  many  pleasant  tastes  and 
appreciations  which  would  have  made  him  a  delightful 
companion.  Very  agreeable  to  look  at,  too,  with  his 
narrow  Scottish  face  and  high,  well-bred  features,  but 
slightly  made,  with  a  scholar's  stoop.  And  in  spite  of 
the  tenacity  of  his  personal  qualities,  not  a  strong 
man,  with  none  of  the  warm,  spontaneous  impulses 
which  made  Mrs.  Norton  so  young,  which  kept  her 
young,  while  he  grew  old,  so  that  in  the  end  the 
ten  years'  difference  of  age  between  them  seems  almost 
to  have  been  reversed  in  her  favour. 

Perhaps  it  was  her  very  warmth  and  youth  and 
generous  impulsiveness  which  attracted  him  to  her, 
quite  as  much  as  her  beauty  and  brilliancy.  And 
as  for  her!  One  wonders  whether  the  woman  ever 
existed  who  could  remain  quite  cold  to  the  affectionate 
admiration  of  a  man  ten  years  her  junior,  with  all 
its  sudden  renewal  of  old  flatteries,  old  conclusions, 
at  a  time  of  her  life  when  she  had  begun  to  think  that 
part  of  her  history  finished. 

But  there  was  much  besides  a  new  romantic  friend- 
ship to  make  this  year  of  return  to  her  own  country  a 
sort  of  crisis  in  the  life  of  Mrs.  Norton.  She  was  forty- 
three.  The  past,  which  might  easily  have  fallen  into  a 
kind  of  unreality  during  her  two  years'  wandering  on 


1850]  "VICTORINE"  217 

the  Continent,  must  have  come  back  with  a  sudden 
recoil  upon  her  when  she  found  herself  again  in 
familiar  places,  among  the  half-forgotten  obligations 
of  old  conventions  and  old  friends.  Her  relations 
with  her  husband  had  long  been  quasi-friendly,  but 
it  is  unlikely  that  even  the  possibility  of  a  renewal 
of  intercourse  with  him,  however  formal,  however 
slight,  could  have  made  any  impression  on  her  but 
pain.  She  was  generous  enough  to  forgive,  to  over- 
look to  an  incredible  extent  the  injury  he  had  once 
inflicted  on  her — to  forgive,  but  never  to  forget,  for 
she  was  not  a  woman  who  easily  forgot  anything. 
A  very  slight  circumstance  was  enough  to  stir  old 
half-dead  memories  and  bring  them  to  life  again. 
And  everything  about  her  just  then  might  have 
suggested  half-dead  memories.  The  form  they  some- 
times took,  and  the  extravagant  use  she  made  of  them, 
is  shown  by  a  letter  of  her  old  friend  Sir  Henry 
Taylor,  written  some  time  this  same  winter. 

"On  Saturday  I  dined  and  went  to  the  play  with 
Mrs.  Norton,  which  sounds  gay,  but  which  is  as 
saddening  a  way  of  passing  an  evening  as  I  could 
find.  Her  society  is  saddening  to  me  in  itself,  so 
glorious  a  creature  to  look  at  even  as  she  is — so 
transcendent  formerly,  and  now  so  faded  in  beauty 
and  foundered  in  life.  She  went  to  see  a  play  called 
Victorine  (which  I  think  you  have  seen),  in  order  to 
see  what  would  be  the  effect  upon  her  of  seeing  now 
what  she  had  seen  eighteen  years  ago,  and  never 
since.  The  effect  was  what  she  probably  expected, 
to  make  her  cry — not,  I  think,  at  anything  in  the  play, 
but  at  the  collocation  of  the  past  with  the  present." 

This  play,  Victorine,  was  presented  in  London  during 
the  first  years  of  the  reign  of  William  IV.,  at  the 
height  of  Mrs.  Norton's  own  early  triumphs.  But 
besides  what  Sir  Henry  Taylor  rather  ponderously 
calls  the  "  collocation  of  the  past  with  the  present " ; 
besides  the  more  subtle  influence  of  fresh  emotional 
experience,  with  its  necessary  accompaniment  of  pain 

28 


218  "STUART   OF   DUNLEATH"       [chap,  xvii 

for  any  moment  of  happiness,  and  its  necessary  revolt 
against  the  dead-weight  of  obligation  which  she  must 
carry  for  the  rest  of  her  life,  there  was  a  very  simple 
and  obvious  reason  for  this  sudden  recrudescence  of 
the  past — her  own  youth,  which  was  beginning  to  lie 
so  far  behind  her  that  she  might  be  supposed  almost 
to  have  forgotten  it,  or  at  least  to  look  back  upon 
its  struggles  and  useless  sacrifices  with  philosophic 
calm. 

All  this  winter  of  1 850-1  she  was  preparing  for 
the  press  a  new  novel,  "  Stuart  of  Dunleath,"  perhaps 
even  now  the  most  read  and  best  known  of  her 
writings — interesting  to  us,  however,  not  so  much  for 
its  own  sake,  charming  as  it  is,  as  for  the  light  it 
throws  on  its  author.  For,  in  spite  of  obvious  in- 
compatibilities, we  must  still  feel  that  "  Stuart  of 
Dunleath  "  is  a  book  made  out  of  the  very  warp  and 
woof  of  her  own  experience.  Nothing  is  less  like 
herself  than  her  heroine,  Eleanor  Raymond,  whom  she 
describes  as  "  without  brilliancy,  without  contrast ; 
nymph-like,  classical,  colourless — the  pale  red  of  the 
small  melancholy  mouth,  the  grey  hazel  of  the  shy 
passionate  eyes,  the  soft  brown  of  the  luxuriant  hair, 
all  melting  into  one  harmony  of  tint  like  a  fair  Italian 
picture  " — a  creature,  gifted  indeed  and  fine-spirited, 
but  peculiarly  tender,  sensitive,  helplessly  submissive 
to  each  new  shock  of  adverse  fortune. 

Yet,  as  one  reads,  one  is  strangely  convinced  that 
this  gentle  being  is,  if  not  Mrs.  Norton  herself,  stripped 
of  the  hard  human  alloy  which  made  her  the  cause 
sometimes,  as  well  as  the  victim  of  her  own  mis- 
fortunes, yet  at  least  the  kind  of  creature  that  would 
have  most  deeply  roused  her  own  sympathies  and 
admiration  if  she  had  seen  her  the  victim  she  herself 
describes.  Such  substitution  in  the  chief  character 
would  not  diminish,  rather  increase  the  author's 
personal  emotions  while  writing  such  a  book.  For 
Eleanor's  story  has  many  things  about  it  strangely 
like  her  own. 


1850-51]  ELEANOR  RAYMOND  219 

It  is  the  story  of  a  child,  tenderly  brought  up  to 
love  and  admire  a  young  and  charming  man,  whom 
her  dying  father  had  appointed  as  her  guardian, 
confronted  at  the  same  time  with  the  loss  of  her 
fortune  and  of  her  early  friend  ;  for  David  Stuart  is 
supposed  to  have  committed  suicide  from  remorse 
over  the  unsuccessful  outcome  of  his  unwarrantable 
speculations  with  the  sums  entrusted  to  him.  Left 
penniless  by  her  guardian's  imprudence — to  put  no 
worse  a  name  to  it — she  is  persuaded  by  those  about 
her  to  marry  a  man  she  does  not  love,  who,  after  his 
first  passion  for  her  is  exhausted,  treats  her  with 
extreme  brutality.  Her  two  children,  while  still  little 
boys,  are  drowned  while  out  in  a  boat  with  their 
father. 

And  just  at  the  point  when  her  husband's  open 
infidelity  has  added  the  last  straw  to  her  other  mis- 
fortunes, the  hero,  Stuart  of  Dunleath,  comes  back 
from  Canada,  where  he  has  been  living  through  all 
the  years  of  Eleanor's  marriage,  busy  in  replacing  the 
lost  fortune,  in  which  undertaking  he  at  last  succeeded, 
by  means  more  convincing  than  those  the  fiction  of 
that  day  usually  troubled  itself  to  provide  for  its 
readers.  He  comes  back  to  see  his  former  ward  and 
get  her  forgiveness.  She  has  always  loved  him. 
Perfectly  innocently,  she  loves  him  still,  and  he,  for 
the  first  time,  loves  her. 

An  extraordinary  exhibition  of  brutality  on  the  part 
of  Eleanor's  husband,  Sir  Stephen  Penrhyn,  brings 
matters  to  a  crisis.  Eleanor  leaves  her  husband,  and 
refuses  ever  to  go  back  to  him.  She  even  consents, 
in  her  first  weak  impulse  of  bitterness  against  him,  to 
begin  proceedings  of  divorce,  by  David  Stuart's  advice, 
and  with  the  implied  understanding  that  her  first  free 
step  will  be  marriage  with  himself. 

The  interest  of  the  book,  in  fact,  centres  in  the 
struggle  of  the  heroine  between  her  duty  in  an 
unhappy  marriage  and  her  love  for  a  man  in  every 
way  fitted    to   receive   her    love.      It    is   a   question 


220  "STUART   OF  DUNLEATH"      [chap,  xvii 

whether  any  woman,  herself  engaged  in  something  of 
the  same  struggle,  could  write  such  a  story  without 
drawing  largely  on  her  own  inner  experiences. 

It  is  with  the  confessed  intention  of  throwing  light 
on  Mrs.  Norton's  own  inner  experience  at  this  period 
that  all  the  passages  quoted  from  this  book  have  been 
selected. 

"  It  is  always  easier  to  a  woman  than  to  a  man  to 
admit  what  the  Portuguese  proverb  calls  'the  im- 
possibility of  impossible  things.'  The  boundaries  of 
duty,  religion,  and  social  necessity  are  walls  round  a 
woman's  heart  and  light  fences  round  a  man's.  So 
high,  so  blank,  so  difficult  to  her  that  often  she  never 
even  looks  beyond,  or,  having  looked,  drops  back  with 
a  sighing  farewell  to  the  world  of  hope  without.  So 
easy,  so  little  of  a  bar  to  him  that,  let  passion  but 
spur  him,  and  he  leaps  at  once." 

And  a  little  further  on,  in  the  midst  of  the  unhappy 
wife's  temptation  to  give  herself  up  to  this  new 
love  : 

11  She  remembered  how  passionately  enamoured  of 
her  her  husband  had  seemed  to  be,  and  how  soon  that 
love  vanished,  leaving  the  dregs  of  a  fitful  admiration, 
which  made  her  almost  loathe  her  own  beauty,  as  the 
only  attraction  she  possessed  for  him.  What  if  all 
men's  love  vanished  so  in  the  security  of  wedded  life  ? 
She  knew  she  was  sure  of  David's  pity,  of  his  tender- 
ness ;  that  he  would  never  maltreat  her ;  but  his  love — 
real  love — the  only  love  that  was  worth  inspiring — the 
only  love  that  could  endure,  the  love  wherein  all 
things  are  pure,  all  things  are  holy,  for  which  Heaven's 
blessing  could  be  asked  and  Heaven's  blessing  granted 
— would  that  be  hers  ? — would  he,  could  he,  give  her 
that  under  the  circumstances  ?" 

A  little  further  on  we  find  a  strangely  fervid  acknow- 
ledgment that  nothing  can  do  away  with  the  sacred 
obligation  of  the  marriage  vow,  in  which  every 
word  seems  charged  with  a  very  passion  of  personal 
renunciation. 


1850-51]  ELEANOR   RAYMOND  221 

"  In  Eleanor's  youth  she  had  married  a  man  she  did 
not  love,  whom  she  did  not  profess  to  love,  for  certain 
advantages,  to  avoid  certain  threatening  miseries.  She 
had  enjoyed  those  advantages,  she  had  been  rescued 
from  those  miseries  ;  and  now  that  they  were  over, 
had  she  the  right  to  annul  the  unloving  vow  for  the 
sake  of  the  first,  her  only  great  temptation  ?  She  saw 
herself  standing  before  the  sacrament  table,  listening 
and  trembling  under  her  long  white  veil,  a  young  and 
most  unhappy  bride,  vowing  for  all  the  years  that 
should  intervene  between  that  passing  instant  and 
death.  When  she  made  that  vow,  she  made  it  with 
simple  sincerity  and  with  deep,  sorrowful  awe ;  when 
she  made  it  she  believed  in  truth  that  only  death 
could  end  the  union  by  which  it  pledged  her  to  abide. 

"  True,  her  husband  was  false  to  her  ;  but  his  false- 
hood could  not  quit  her  of  her  vow.  His  sin  was  not 
to  be  balanced  by  her  sin  ;  even  were  it  because  of  his 
sin,  and  not  because  of  her  own  wild  love,  that  she 
had  for  ever  forsaken  the  shelter  of  his  house." 

There  are  many  more  passages  of  the  same  kind. 
The  whole  account  of  this  imagined  struggle  between 
duty  and  inclination  is,  in  fact,  remarkable  for  its 
clear-sighted  analysis  and  rejection  of  every  argument 
which  might  have  given  Mrs.  Norton  a  right  to  seek 
her  own  happiness  in  ways  which  might  still  lie  open 
to  her.  For  in  the  end  the  poor  young  heroine  gives 
up  her  life  to  her  duty  with  very  scant  reward,  for  her 
lover  almost  immediately  consoles  himself  for  her  loss 
by  a  marriage  with  a  very  charming  lady  who  makes 
him  happier  than  he  quite  deserves.  Yet  at  the  last 
there  was  this  one  touch  of  comfort  for  Eleanor,  in  the 
secret,  invincible  consciousness  that,  come  what  might, 
it  was  not  David's  wife  but  herself  who  had  been  the 
real  love  of  his  life.     Mrs.  Norton  declares  : 

"Oh  feel  sure,  Eleanor!  He  spoke  no  more  than 
truth  when  he  told  you,  you  were  his  ideal  of  love 
and  loveliness.  The  woman  who  is  so  loved  may 
have  successors,  as  she  has  had  predecessors ;  but 
rivals  she  has  none.     Lone  and  different  as  the  moon 


222  "STUART   OF  DUNLEATH"      [chap,  xvii 

in  a  heaven  full  of  stars,  she  remains  in  the  world  of 
that  man's  heart.  He  has  known  other  women,  and 
he  has  known  her.  It  may  be  the  love  of  his  youth, 
or  the  wife  of  his  old  age — first  love  or  last  love,  it 
matters  not.  The  love,  the  one  love  that  fulfils  all  the 
exigencies  of  illusion,  all  the  charms  of  sense,  and  all 
the  pleasures  of  companionship,  comes  but  once  in 
man's  lifetime.  The  rest  are  substitutes,  makeshifts 
for  love  ;  to  them  in  vain  he  shall  affirm,  or  deny,  that 
which  they  desire  or  dread  to  hear.  In  his  heart  a 
shadow  sits  throned,  who  for  ever  bends  down  to 
listen,  to  watch  those  who  would  approach  him,  and 
bar  them  out  with  whispers  of  sorrowful  comparison 
and  the  delight  of  remembered  days." 


The  passage  gains  in  value  when  we  remember  that 
it  was  written  by  a  woman  richly  endowed  with  the 
qualities  which  make  friendship  difficult  between  men 
and  women,  and  by  her  unfortunate  position  for  ever 
denied  a  more  tender  relation  than  friendship — for 
ever  condemned  to  see  the  men  who  had  once  cared 
for  her  and  for  whom  she  might  have  cared,  turn  to 
some  other  woman,  less  lovely,  less  satisfying  perhaps 
than  herself,  leaving  her  only  memories. 

But  it  would  be  unfair  and  inconsistent  with  Mrs. 
Norton's  natural  buoyancy  of  temper  to  leave  her  too 
long  in  this  melancholy  shadow.  We  read  of  her,  for 
instance,  in  Lady  Eastlake's  reminiscences  of  that 
same  winter  in  London  society. 


''January  28.  —  At  the  Bunsens'  yesterday  I  saw 
Mrs.  Norton,  and  looked  at  her  well.  Her  beauty 
is,  perhaps,  of  too  high  an  order  to  strike  at  first, 
especially  as  she  is  now  above  forty.  It  did  not  give 
me  much  artistic  pleasure,  but  I  could  see  that  I 
should  probably  think  her  more  and  more  beautiful. 
Also  I  did  not  see  her  speak  or  smile,  as  she  was 
listening  to  music.  Lady  Lyell  was  in  great  beauty  ; 
to  my  mind  she  has  far  more  beauty  of  a  legitimate 
kind  than  Mrs.  Norton,  though  she  does  not  use  her 
eyes  so  ably  and  wickedly." 


1851]        LETTER  TO   LADY  DUFF  GORDON  223 

This  probably  refers  to  that  habit  which  Fanny 
Kemble  elsewhere  remarks  of  Mrs.  Norton — viz.  her 
keeping  her  eyes  cast  down,  even  while  she  sang  or 
talked.  So,  when  at  last  she  did  raise  her  lashes, 
which  were  very  beautiful  and  soft  and  dark,  it  gave 
them  the  more  effect. 

In  July  of  this  same  year  we  have  the  following  gay 
little  letter  from  her  to  Lady  Duff  Gordon  : 

"July  1 85 1. 

"  My  dear  Lucie, 

"  We  have  never  thanked  you  for  the  red  Pots, 
which  no  early  Christian  should  be  without,  and 
which  add  that  finishing  stroke  to  the  splendour  of 
our  demesne,  which  was  supposed  to  depend  on  a 
roc's  egg  in  less  intelligent  times.  We  have  now  a 
warm  Pompejian  appearance,  and  the  constant  con- 
templation of  these  classical  objects  favours  the  beauty 
of  the  facial  line ;  for  what  can  be  deduced  from  the 
great  fact  apparent  in  all  the  statues  of  antiquity,  that 
straight  noses  were  the  ancient  custom,  but  the  logical 
assumption  that  the  constant  habit  of  turning  up 
the  nose  at  unseemly  objects,  such  as  the  'National 
Gallery '  and  other  offensive  and  obtrusive  things, 
has  produced  the  offensive  modern  divergence  from 
the  real  true  and  proper  line  of  profile  ?  I  rejoice  to 
think  that  we  ourselves  are  exempt.  I  attribute  this 
to  our  love  of  Pompejian  Pots  (on  account  of  the 
beauty  and  distinction  of  this  Pot's  shape  I  spell  it 
with  a  big  P),  which  has  kept  us  straight  in  a  world 
of  crookedness.  The  pursuit  of  profiles  under  diffi- 
culties !  How  much  more  rare  than  a  pursuit  of 
knowledge  !  Talk  of  setting  good  examples  to  our 
children.  Bah  !  Let  us  set  Pompejian  rots  before 
our  children,  and  when  they  grow  up  they  will  not 
depart  from  them. 

"  Stirling  is  gone  to  Scotland  to  look  at  his  un- 
finished house.  I  very  much  doubt  its  being  fit  to 
live  in  for  two  months  ;  none  of  the  grates  are  fixed. 
But  he  will  report  when  he  returns,  in  a  week's  time. 

"  I  called  for  you  the  wet  day  you  departed,  to  carry 
you  to  our  den,  and  Lord  Lansdowne  came  after  his 
dinner,  making  sure  of  finding  you;  but  you  were 
gone. 


224  STIRLING  OF  KEIR  [chap,  xvii 

"  My  family  are  all  scattering  abroad,  but  wait — 
some  of  them — for  the  wedding  of  Mabel  Graham  on 
August  7.1  It  is  a  most  satisfactory  marriage  in  all 
respects. 

"  Brin  continues  very  seedy ;  Fletcher  pretty  brisk. 
When  shall  you  again  be  seen  in  London?  Food 
is  there  at  five  o'clock  every  day  on  our  table,  but 
slumber  is  only  to  be  had  on  the  house  steps. 

"  Your  affectionate 

"  Carry." 

The  unfinished  state  of  Mr.  Stirling's  house  at  Keir 
was  owing  to  the  extensive  alterations  which  he  had 
lately  entered  upon  to  change  the  place  he  had  in- 
herited from  his  father  in  1847  into  the  beautiful, 
stately  form  it  still  retains,  with  its  portico  and  wings 
and  terraced  approaches.  He  had  already  begun  to 
make  plans  to  fill  it,  as  we  see  from  one  of  Lady  Duff 
Gordon's  letters  : 

"July  20,  1851. 
"  We  have  a  kind  of  half-project  of  going  to  Scotland 
this  year  and  visiting  Stirling  at  Keir,  together  with 
Mrs.  Norton  and  her  son,  with  whom  I  am  nearly  as 
much  friends  as  with  his  mother.  He  has  grown  into 
a  delightful  young  man,  and  certainly  twenty-one  is  a 
charming  age  when  it  is  not  odious." 

The  autumn  was  spent  in  a  series  of  visits  in  the 
north  of  England  and  in  Scotland,  where,  for  the 
first  time,  Mrs.  Norton  saw  Keir.  It  also  marks 
the  beginning  of  her  last  wretched  struggle  with  her 
husband. 

1  Daughter  of  Sir  James  Graham,  m.  to  Lord  Feversham. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

LIFE  ABROAD — LAST  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND 

On  June  9,  1851,  Mrs.  Sheridan  died,  at  the  house  of 
her  eldest  daughter,  Lady  Dufferin,  having  long  been 
in  delicate  health  and,  for  the  latter  part  of  her  life, 
nearly  blind.  She  had  grieved  also  greatly  over  the 
loss  of  her  sons,  and  over  her  daughter's  misfortunes, 
which  had  driven  her  gradually  more  and  more  out  of 
the  world,  till  at  last  she  lived  in  almost  complete 
retirement,  though  never  inactive.  Her  patient, 
energetic  life  came  to  an  end  in  perfect  consistency 
with  its  beginning,  and  she  left  behind  her  a  very 
beautiful  example  of  earnestness,  usefulness,  and 
unobtrusive  self-sacrifice. 

At  her  death  George  Norton  inherited  the  life- 
interest  in  his  wife's  portion  from  her  father,  which 
had  not  been  secured  to  her  in  any  way,  and  Mrs. 
Norton  inherited,  secured  to  her  most  carefully  by 
every  expression  of  her  mother's  will,  an  income  for 
life  of  £480.  One  cannot  but  be  amused  by  the  tone 
Mr.  Norton  assumed  in  speaking  of  this  inheritance, 
as  though  he  had  not  been  quite  fairly  treated  by  it. 

"  In  1851,"  he  says,  "my  son's  expenses  at  Oxford 
increasing,  and  my  own  expenses  in  Yorkshire  being 
greater  to  keep  up  the  rents  in  the  then  depressed 
state  of  agriculture,  I  learned  that  Mrs.  Norton  had 
been  left  £500  per  annum  by  her  mother,  from  whom  I 
225  29 


226  LAST  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND    [chap,  xviii 

was  not  aware  that  she  had  any  expectations.  I  then 
proposed  a  reduction  of  her  allowance,  which  she 
would  not  accede  to." 

She  refused,  perhaps,  with  the  more  emphasis 
because  she  did  not  believe  her  son's  expenses  at 
Oxford  had  anything  to  do  with  her  husband's  pro- 
posal to  divide  her  inheritance  with  him.  Her  second 
son,  Brinsley,  after  his  return  from  Portugal,  had  been 
sent  by  his  father  to  a  private  tutor  to  be  prepared  for 
Oxford,  where  he  was  entered  at  University  College, 
the  year  of  his  mother's  return  to  England. 

"  Kindly,  clever,  handsome,  but  wild,"  is  the  judg- 
ment of  one  of  his  kinsmen.  He  was  so  recklessly 
extravagant  at  college  that  he  had  to  be  withdrawn  at 
the  end  of  his  first  year,  deeply  in  debt.  His  health, 
too,  seems  to  have  suffered.  His  mother  was  anxious 
to  take  him  away  with  her  to  Italy,  where  she  was 
going  to  join  her  eldest  son,  who  had  been  lately  made 
secretary  of  a  secretary  of  the  British  Embassy  at 
Naples.  She  was  full  of  anxiety  for  his  future,  pain- 
fully aware  that  a  woman  is  not  the  best  judge  of  what 
is  best  to  be  done  for  a  youth  who  had  already  shown 
himself  headstrong  and  extravagant. 

Her  husband  was  quite  ready  to  let  him  go  wherever 
his  mother  chose  to  take  him,  always  on  condition  she 
found  the  means  for  supporting  him  there.  Naples 
was  not  exactly  the  place  one  would  have  selected 
for  a  lad  who  had  shown  a  weakness  for  pleasure; 
nor  was  idleness  the  best  opportunity  for  over- 
coming dangerous  propensities.  But  whatever  mis- 
takes Mrs.  Norton  made  in  this  respect  were  exacted 
from  her  in  the  future  to  the  extreme  of  her  powers 
to  pay. 

All  the  last  year  of  her  stay  at  Naples  she  was 
hard  at  work  on  another  novel  to  pay  Brinsley's 
Oxford  debts ;  she  was  trying  to  find  money  to 
pay  the  preliminary  training  of  some  profession  for 
him. 


1 85 1-3]  MONEY    MATTERS  227 

These  expensive  responsibilities,  however,  had  no 
effect  on  George  Norton,  who  was  determined  to  make 
the  legacy  an  excuse  for  curtailing  his  allowance  to 
his  wife. 

She  reminded  him  of  the  signed  contract  between 
them;  he  replied  that  he  was  not  legally  bound  by 
that  contract  any  longer  than  he  pleased  to  acknow- 
ledge it.  She  could  not  believe  this ;  she  thought  he 
was  only  trying  to  frighten  her  into  abating  her  claim. 
But  when  she  came  to  draw  on  her  quarter's  allowance 
for  March  1852,  six  months  before  the  first  instalment 
of  her  mother's  legacy  could  be  paid,  her  cheques  were 
returned  dishonoured.  When  she  remonstrated — when 
she  represented  to  him  that  she  had  not  the  means  to 
pay  these  creditors  without  the  money  she  had  a  right 
to  expect  from  him ;  that  she  had  already  spent  all  she 
could  borrow  to  prevent  the  public  actions  these 
creditors  were  already  instituting  to  recover  their 
claims  by  law,  he  replied  through  his  solicitor  that  he 
declined  all  discussion  of  the  subject. 

She  had  hurried  back  to  England  in  the  early 
summer  of  1853  to  try  to  bring  order  out  of  this  con- 
fusion, only  to  find  a  disquieting  difference  of  legal 
opinion  as  to  the  validity  of  the  contract  by  which  she 
believed  her  husband  bound.  In  honour,  yes ;  they 
all  agreed  he  was  bound  in  honour  to  respect  his 
witnessed  signature.  But  in  law,  no.  In  law,  a  man 
could  not  contract  with  his  own  wife. 

She  was  advised,  however,  to  let  one  of  these  suits 
come  up  for  trial,  as  a  sort  of  test  case,  to  get  a  legal 
verdict  on  the  subject.  This  case  came  finally  to  a 
hearing  in  the  Westminster  County  Court  on 
August  18,  1853.  The  plaintiffs  were  the  Thrupps, 
the  carriage  builders ;  the  bill  was  for  repairs  of 
a  little  carriage,  in  use  for  twelve  years,  the  same 
which  she  had  set  up  with  such  pride,  and  paid  for 
out  of  the  proceeds  of  her  very  successful  poem, 
"The  Dream." 

The  defendant  was,  of  course,  George  Norton,  as 


228  LAST  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND    [chap,  xviii 

a  married  woman  could  not  be  sued  for  debt.  On 
ordinary  occasions,  indeed,  Mrs.  Norton  would  not 
have  appeared  at  all,  but  in  this  case  she  was  sub- 
poenaed as  a  witness. 

The  dingy  little  court-room  was  crowded  to  excess 
with  a  very  different  audience  from  that  usually 
attracted  by  such  occasions.  Indeed,  there  was  hardly 
space  about  the  bench  for  the  throng  of  witnesses, 
subpoenaed  by  George  Norton,  in  the  zeal  of  his  own 
defence.  Among  them  were  to  be  seen  a  former 
maid  of  his  wife's,  by  whom  he  hoped  to  prove  her 
extravagance  ;  her  publishers  and  bankers,  by  whom 
he  hoped  to  prove  that  she  had  ample  means  to 
pay  her  debts  without  help  from  him ;  and  herself, 
whom  he  hoped  to  betray  into  still  more  damaging 
admissions. 

The  only  excuse  one  may  find  for  his  conduct  on 
this  occasion  was  that  he  had  been  both  amazed  and 
enraged  in  his  study  of  his  wife's  bank-book,  delivered 
up  to  him  on  demand  by  his  wife's  bankers,  to  find 
that  she  had  more  money  than  he  had  supposed.  It 
was  not  in  his  nature  to  ask  himself  what  right  he  had 
to  her  whole  confidence,  either  in  this  or  in  any  other 
matter.  He  could  only  feel  that  he  had  been  deceived, 
managed.  There  is  no  doubt  that  she  had  often 
managed  him  in  the  past,  as  much  for  his  own  advan- 
tage as  for  hers.  But  whenever  he  suspected  it  he 
resented  it.  After  his  separation  from  her,  his  family, 
or  those  unkindly  disposed  to  her,  had  only  to  touch 
that  sore  spot  to  send  him  off  into  the  most  brutal 
conclusions  against  her. 

So  now,  on  finding  she  was  a  richer  woman  than  he 
had  believed,  the  old  suspicion  of  her  rushed  back, 
and  the  old  revengeful  instinct  sprang  again  into  life, 
to  strike  her  down,  to  make  her  suffer  for  it.  She 
herself  describes  their  encounter  in  the  court-room. 

11  When  I  first  saw  my  husband  my  courage  sank  ; 
the  horrible  strangeness  of  my  position  oppressed  me 


1853]  SUBPOENAED  AS  A  WITNESS  229 

with  anger  and  shame  ;  my  heart  beat ;  the  crowd  of 
people  swam  before  my  eyes  ;  and  the  answers  I  had 
begun  to  make,  and  declarations  I  had  intended  to 
struggle  through,  choked  in  my  throat,  which  felt  as 
if  it  were  full  of  dust.  Mr.  Norton  rose,  gathered  up 
his  papers,  and  saying  with  a  sneer,  '  What  does  the 
witness  say?  Let  her  speak  up  ;  I  cannot  hear  her!' 
he  came  and  seated  himself  close  to  me — there  was 
only  the  skirting-board  that  divided  the  court  between 
us.  I  saw  the  glare  of  the  angry  eyes  I  remembered 
long  ago  in  my  home,  the  sneer  of  triumph  and 
determination  to  crush  me  at  all  hazards.  I  felt,  as  I 
looked  for  an  instant  towards  him,  that  he  saw  in  me 
neither  a  woman  to  be  spared  public  insult  nor  a 
mother  to  be  spared  shameful  sorrow,  but  simply  a 
claimant  to  be  non-suited,  a  creditor  to  be  evaded, 
a  pecuniary  encumbrance  he  was  determined  to  be 
rid  of.  More  than  one  of  the  professional  gentlemen 
present  appealed  to  the  Judge  whether  he  should  be 
permitted  to  sit  where  he  had  placed  himself;  but 
there  he  continued  to  sit,  instructing  his  counsel  in 
an  undertone  what  questions  to  put  to  me,  making 
notes  of  the  case,  and  occasionally  peremptorily 
addressing  me  himself." 

But  even  she  was  not  prepared  for  the  extreme 
brutality  of  this  last  attack  upon  her.  When  the 
validity  of  the  contract  was  at  last  brought  up  to  be 
discussed,  Mr.  Norton  acknowledged  that,  though  at 
the  time  of  signing  it  he  had  known  it  was  not  valid, 
and  supposed  that  she  did  too,  he  would  still  have 
continued  to  be  bound  by  it,  if  he  had  not  been 
deceived  by  her ;  for  before  ever  entering  into  this 
arrangement,  he  had  enacted,  as  a  chief  condition  of 
it,  his  wife's  solemn  asseveration  that  she  had  never 
received  money  from  Lord  Melbourne — this  to  be  con- 
sidered by  her  husband  as  her  final  declaration  of  her 
innocence  in  her  relations  with  the  Prime  Minister. 
Her  husband  asserted  that  she  made  this  declaration, 
that  she  afterwards  solemnly  reaffirmed  it  to  her  eldest 
son,  whom  her  husband  had  chosen  as  his  messenger 
for  that  purpose.     But  from  her  bank-book  he  found 


23o  LAST  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND  [chap,  xviii 

she  had  been  in  receipt  of  an  income  from  Lord 
Melbourne's  brother  or  sister  ever  since  1848. 

No  one,  not  even  his  wife,  saw  at  once  all  the 
absurd  flaws  in  this  statement.  The  inconsistency  of 
it  in  the  fact,  for  instance,  that  he  had  stopped  her 
allowance  months  before  he  saw  her  bank-book  or 
knew  of  the  annuity  paid  by  Lady  Palmerston ;  or  in 
the  fact  that  Lord  Melbourne  was  still  alive,  and 
there  could  have  been  no  question  of  what  he  had  left 
her  when  the  contract  was  drawn  up  and  signed 
between  herself  and  her  husband. 

But  every  one  in  the  room  could  feel  the  full  force 
of  the  insult,  the  remarkable  reassertion  of  the  old 
slander,  which  had  been  disproved  years  ago  by  the 
verdict  for  Lord  Melbourne,  its  assumption  as  a 
living  fact,  a  moving  force  in  her  husband's  present 
action  against  her.  To  go  on  in  her  own  bitter 
words,  her  own  apology  for  the  scene  which  followed 
in  the  court- room  : 

"From  the  moment  the  questioning  began  about 
Lord  Melbourne  I  lost  all  self-possession.  Not 
because  I  was  ashamed  of  having  accepted  his 
bequest ;  if  I  had  thought  there  was  shame  in  it  I 
should  not  have  taken  it ;  but  because  I  then  saw  all 
the  cruel  baseness  of  Mr.  Norton's  intention.  All 
flashed  upon  me  at  once.  I  felt  that  I  no  longer 
stood  in  that  court  to  struggle  for  an  income,  but  to 
struggle  against  infamy.  I  knew  by  sudden  instinct 
that  the  husband  who  had  so  often,  to  me  and  to 
others,  asserted  that  the  trial  was  the  work  of  advisers, 
was  now  about  to  pretend  he  believed  the  charge 
brought  against  Lord  Melbourne  in  1836.  The  wild 
exasperation  came  over  me,  which  seemed  so  in- 
explicable to  those  who  did  not  know  our  real  story. 
He  who  had  falsely  accused  me  long  ago,  he  who  had 
taken  my  young  children,  and'  let  one  of  them  die 
without  even  sending  for  me  till  too  late,  he  who 
had  embittered  and  clouded  my  whole  existence,  who 
was  now  in  my  presence  only  to  cheat  me — was  once 
more  going  to  brand  me  before  the  world. 

"  I   felt  giddy ;  the   faces  of  the   people  grew  in- 


1853]  SCENE   IN   THE   COURT   ROOM  231 

distinct ;  my  sentences  became  a  confused  alternation 
of  angry  loudness  and  husky  attempts  to  speak.  I 
saw  nothing  but  the  husband  whose  mercenary  nature 
Lord  Melbourne  himself  had  warned  me  I  judged  too 
leniently;  nothing  but  the  gnome,  proceeding  again 
to  dig  away,  for  the  sake  of  money,  what  remnant  of 
peace,  happiness,  and  reputation  might  have  rested 
in  the  future  years  of  my  life ;  turning  up,  as  he  dug, 
dead  sorrows,  and  buried  shames,  and  miserable 
recollections,  and  careless  who  was  hurt  by  them, 
so  long  as  he  evaded  payment  of  a  disputed  annuity, 
and  stamped  his  own  signature,  worthless. 

"  I  tried  at  first  confusedly  enough,  as  the  broken 
sentences  in  the  report  showed,  but  afterwards  as 
connectedly  as  I  could,  to  explain  that  Lord  Mel- 
bourne had  left  me  nothing  in  his  will ;  that  I  believed 
he  could  not,  his  property  being  strictly  entailed; 
that  I  had  never  been  his  mistress  ;  that  I  was  young 
enough,  and  more  than  young  enough,  to  be  his 
daughter,  and  that  he  had  never  treated  me  otherwise 
than  as  a  friend  ;  that  dying  he  had  left  nothing  but  a 
letter  solemnly  repeating  his  assurance  of  my  in- 
nocence, recommending  me  to  the  generosity  of  his 
brother,  and  stating  the  amount  of  provision  he 
wished  made  for  me ;  that  his  brother  and  his  sister 
had  abided  by,  and  fulfilled  his  intentions,  because  his 
memory  was  dear  to  them ;  and  none  but  my  husband 
had  ever  accused  him  of  baseness." 

To  turn  from  her  own  account  to  the  details  of  the 
case  which  appeared  the  next  morning  in  all  the 
newspapers,  at  this  point  in  her  evidence  there  was  a 
"  burst  of  applause  from  some  two  hundred  or  three 
hundred  people  in  the  body  of  the  court,  which  was 
at  once  properly  suppressed  by  the  order  ol  the 
Judge." 

She  goes  on  herself: 

"  The  feeling  in  the  court  began  to  show  itself  in  a 
strong  and  obvious  sympathy  for  me ;  and  the  case 
became  more  like  a  vehement  debate  than  a  judicial 
inquiry. 


232  LAST  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND   [chap,  xviii 

"  Mr.  Leman  was  examined  to  prove  that  there  had 
been  no  condition  whatever  (as  Mr.  Norton  had  just 
affirmed)  concerning  Lord  Melbourne,  either  written 
or  verbal." 

The  case,  however,  was  decided  against  the  creditor 
and  in  favour  of  George  Norton,  on  the  technical  point 
that  this  particular  bill  had  been  contracted  before  the 
allowance  had  been  withdrawn. 

Mrs.  Norton  announced  her  submission  to  the 
verdict  with  a  kind  of  fierce  resignation. 

"  I  do  not  ask  for  my  rights.  I  have  no  rights ;  I 
have  only  wrongs.  I  have  no  doubt  I  have  a  very 
ample  income,  upon  an  average  for  some  years,  £1,500 ; 
and  now  that  I  know  my  husband  can  defraud  me,  I 
will  not  live  abroad  with  my  son." 

The  whole  court  again  burst  into  applause.  She 
goes  on  with  her  own  account  of  it : 

"  Mr.  Norton  then  vehemently  addressed  me,  the 
Judge,  the  reporters  for  the  press.  He  said  I  had  told 
the  grossest  falsehoods  ;  that  he  only  regretted  he  had 
no  opportunity  at  present;  that  he  hoped  at  some 
future  opportunity  to  '  give  the  contradiction  that  from 
his  heart  and  soul  he  could  give.'  He  moved  still 
nearer  to  me,  clenched  his  hand,  and  spoke  in  a 
threatening  manner ;  but  the  groaning  and  utter  con- 
fusion in  court  made  it  difficult  even  for  me  to  gather 
exactly  what  his  threats  were,  except  that  they  had 
reference  to  the  hope  of  some  fresh  occasion  of  debate. 
The  Judge  ordered  the  court  to  be  cleared,  and  the 
next  case   called  on ;   and   so   ended   this  disgraceful 


The  next  morning  all  the  papers  were  filled  with  a 
detailed  account  of  the  proceedings.  How  exasperating 
to  the  principal  victim,  who  saw  herself  vulgarised, 
exaggerated,  her  statements  hopelessly  garbled  and 
confused  in  the  clumsy  report  of  the  evidence — any 
one  who   has   ever  been  in  anything   like  the   same 


i8s3]  LETTER   TO    "THE   TIMES"  233 

position  will  best  understand.  And  one  of  the  most 
intolerable  complications  of  her  position — intolerable 
especially  to  a  woman  of  her  peculiar  temperament — 
was  that,  while  she  had  been  subjected  to  a  long, 
insulting  cross-examination,  made  to  tell  the  court  the 
number  of  her  servants,  the  money  she  was  in  the 
habit  of  giving  away  in  charity,  the  most  personal 
and  private  details  of  her  daily  life,  had  been  forced 
to  read  the  most  humiliating  misstatements  about  Lord 
Melbourne  in  the  reports  of  the  trial,  she  could  not 
herself  make  the  slightest  effort  to  get  her  own  state- 
ment before  the  world  without  being  told  that  she 
was  courting  publicity. 

Much  against  the  wishes  of  her  family,  she  did 
write  and  send  a  letter  to  The  Times  the  day  after 
the  trial,  merely  to  state  the  flaws  which  made  her 
husband's  charge  against  her  not  only  insulting  but 
ridiculous. 

It  would  have  been  better  for  her  if  she  had  hurled 
back  her  retort  with  less  hard  exasperation  of  spirit. 
A  few  days  later  appeared  George  Norton's  reply, 
also  in  the  form  of  a  public  letter  to  The  Times — a 
letter  of  extraordinary  length,  and  in  many  respects 
an  extraordinary  document.  In  the  first  place,  it  was 
a  very  careful  reassertion  of  his  belief  in  his  wife's 
guilt,  going  back  for  its  charges  far  into  the  past, 
before  their  marriage,  when  he  represents  himself  as 
a  blindly  infatuated  lover,  over  whom  she  had  all 
power  to  deceive  him  as  she  would,  mentioning  a 
point  of  time  before  the  birth  of  their  two  youngest 
children  as  the  moment  when  he  began  to  suspect  her 
of  improper  intimacy  with  Lord  Melbourne,  adding 
one  or  two  insulting  little  stories  in  confirmation  of 
the  justice  of  these  suspicions,  pursuing  his  rehearsal 
of  his  grievances  till  they  seem  to  include  and  accuse 
every  one  in  any  way  connected  with  him  from  earliest 
times  down  to  the  moment  of  this  last  clash  of  differ- 
ence between  himself  and  his  wife,  when  he  accuses 
her  of  making  use   of  the   legal   non-existence   of  a 

30 


234  LAST  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND   [chap,  xviii 

married  woman  "  to  oppress  him  with  litigation  and 
costs  and  impair  his  already  crippled  means,  which 
should  have  been  applied  to  the  maintenance  of  him- 
self and  his  two  sons,  both  of  them  just  entering  on 
life." 

There  is  a  peculiar  quality  running  through  the 
whole  letter,  as  of  a  man  blind  and  deaf  to  all  the 
more  generous  impulses  of  the  spirit — a  kind  of  in- 
capacity for  knowing  his  own  baseness,  which  made 
him  repeatedly  assert  as  points  in  his  favour  things 
that  must  only  prove  him  more  strangely  dead  to  pity 
or  magnanimity.  He  taunts  his  wife  with  her  readi- 
ness in  the  past  to  come  back  to  him.  He  speaks  of 
her  painful  agitation  during  that  most  painful  scene 
in  the  County  Court  "  as  the  most  splendid  piece  of 
acting  ever  exhibited,  however  much  the  sober  mind 
of  England  must  revolt  against  the  disgrace  of  a  court 
of  justice  being  turned  into  the  stage  of  Drury  Lane" 
— wishing  evidently  to  lose  no  opportunity  of  giving 
a  stab  at  her,  wherever  he  knew  it  would  hurt  her 
most. 

This  letter  was  instantly  answered  by  several  people 
more  or  less  directly  affected  by  some  of  its  misstate- 
ments. Mr.  Leman,  George  Norton's  own  lawyer, 
wrote  to  The  Times  flatly  contradicting  all  his  employer 
had  said  about  the  private  contract  which  the  solicitor 
had  drawn  up  and  which  Mr.  Norton  had  broken. 

Sir  John  Bayley  wrote  at  length  to  deny  all  Mr. 
Norton's  assertions  against  his  wife's  conduct  during 
the  negotiations  in  which  Sir  John  himself  had  taken 
part.     A  portion  of  this  letter  I  have  already  quoted. 

Sir  William  Follett  was  dead,  and  could  not  con- 
tradict Mr.  Norton's  statement  that  the  suit  against 
Lord  Melbourne  had  been  carried  on  with  his  advice. 
But  Mrs.  Norton  herself  had  a  letter  reprinted  which 
had  appeared  in  The  Times  as  long  ago  as  the  summer 
of  1836,  written  by  the  solicitors  who  had  prepared 
the  evidence  for  the  prosecution,  declaring  that  Sir 
William  had  neither  advised  nor  approved  nor  even 


1853]  LETTER  TO   "THE  TIMES"  235 

known  on  what  evidence  the  case  was  to  rest  till  a 
few  days  before  the  trial. 

It  would  have  been  far  better  if  she  had  been  con- 
tent with  such  indirect  methods  of  self-defence.  But 
perhaps  that  would  have  been  asking  more  of  her 
than  was  in  her  power  to  do.  Abraham  Hayward, 
reproached  by  some  mutual  friend  for  not  using  his 
influence  to  prevent  her  from  committing  herself 
further,  remarks  ruefully : 

"  I  was  obliged  to  accompany  Mrs.  Norton  to  the 
County  Court,  which  I  did  simply  to  prevent  her  from 
going  alone.  No  one  can  be  Mrs.  Norton's  adviser, 
for  she  never  follows  advice.  I  ended  by  telling  her, 
in  Lady  Seymour's  presence,  that  she  ought  to  be 
interdicted  the  use  of  pen,  ink,  and  paper." 

She  had  reached  the  age,  however,  when  no  one 
can  interdict  a  woman  from  what  she  has  finally  made 
up  her  mind  to  do,  and  her  reply  to  her  husband's 
letter  came  in  a  letter  to  The  Times  a  few  days  later, 
quite  as  long,  quite  as  angry,  as  his,  but  differing  from 
his  as  much  as  might  be  expected  from  those  very 
dissimilar  natures,  which  an  equally  violent  emotion 
has  thus  stripped  bare  and  unshamed  to  our  view.  It 
is  not  his  anger,  but  the  meanness  revealed  by  that 
anger,  which  disgusts  us  in  George  Norton's  letter. 
It  is  only  her  anger,  the  loss  of  dignity  and  charity 
which  it  entails,  which  we  regret  in  Mrs.  Norton's 
reply.  The  purpose  that  drove  her  on  to  refute  her 
husband's  accusations  against  her,  one  after  another, 
was  not  unworthy,  is  not  to  be  entirely  condemned, 
though  it  would  have  been  better  served  by  a  more 
temperate  and  less  personal  statement.  She  explains 
it  herself  as  follows  in  the  concluding  sentences  of 
her  letter: 

"  I  have  done.  There  will  always  be  those  to  whom 
a  slander  is  precious,  and  who  cannot  bear  to  have 
it  refuted.    There  are  also  those  in  whose  eyes  the 


236  LAST  QUARREL  WITH  HER  HUSBAND   [chap,  xviii 

accusation  of  a  woman  is  her  condemnation,  and  who 
care  little  whether  the  story  be  false  or  true,  so  long 
as  there  is,  or  was,  a  story  against  her.  But  juster 
minds,  who  will  pause  and  review  the  circumstances 
Mr.  Norton  himself  has  published  will  perhaps  think 
the  fate  of  that  woman  a  hard  one,  whom  neither  the 
verdict  of  a  jury,  nor  the  solemn  denial  of  a  voice  from 
the  dead,  nor  the  petition  of  her  husband  for  a  recon- 
ciliation and  oblivion  of  the  past,  can  clear  from  a 
charge  always  and  utterly  untrue.  On  Mr.  Norton's 
own  letter  I  am  content  that  people  should  judge  us 
both.  Many  friends  have  wished  me  to  pass  over  that 
letter  in  disdainful  silence,  as  refuting  itself;  and  per- 
haps, if  1  were  happy  enough  to  be  obscure  and 
unknown,  that  would  be  my  course.  But  I  have  a 
position  separate  from  my  woman's  destiny :  I  am 
known  as  a  writer,  and  I  will  not  permit  that  Mr. 
Norton's  letter  shall  remain  on  the  journals  of  Great 
Britain  as  the  uncontradicted  record  of  my  actions. 

11 1  will,  as  far  as  I  am  able,  defend  a  name  which 
might  have  been  only  favourably  known,  but  which 
my  husband  has  rendered  notorious.  The  little  world 
of  my  chance  readers  may  say  of  me,  after  I  am  dead 
and  gone  and  my  struggles  over  and  forgotten,  '  The 
woman  who  wrote  this  book  had  an  unhappy  history,' 
but  they  shall  not  say,  'The  woman  who  wrote  this 
book  was  a  profligate  and  a  mercenary  hypocrite.' 
Since  my  one  gift  of  writing  gives  me  friends  among 
strangers,  I  appeal  to  the  opinion  of  strangers  as  well 
as  that  of  friends.  Since,  in  however  bounded  and 
narrow  a  degree,  there  is  a  chance  that  I  may  be 
remembered  after  death,  I  will  not  have  my  whole 
life  misrepresented. 

"  Let  those  women  who  have  the  true  woman's  lot 
of  being  unknown  out  of  the  circle  of  their  homes 
thank  God  for  that  blessing — it  is  a  blessing;  but  for 
me  publicity  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  choice.  Defence 
is  possible  to  me,  not  silence.  And  I  must  remind 
those  who  think  the  right  of  a  husband  so  indefeasible 
that  a  wife  ought  rather  to  submit  to  the  martyrdom 
of  her  reputation  than  be  justified  at  his  expense,  that 
I  have  refrained.  All  I  state  now  I  might  have  stated 
at  any  time  during  the  past  unhappy  years ;  and  I 
never  did  publicly  state  it  till  now — now,  when  I  find 


1853]  LETTER   TO    "THE   TIMES"  237 

Mr.  Norton  slandering  the  mother  of  his  children, 
endeavouring  thus  to  overwhelm  me  with  infamy,  for 
no  offence  but  that  of  having  rashly  asserted  a  claim 
upon  him  which  was  found  not  to  be  valid  in  law,  but 
only  binding  on  him  as  a  man  of  honour." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

PAMPHLET  ON   "  ENGLISH  LAWS  FOR  WOMEN  "  AND  "  LETTER 
TO  THE   QUEEN" 

We  are  taught  that  human  nature  is  made  strong  by 
suffering,  but  our  experience  shows  us  that  often  the 
reverse  of  this  is  true — that  the  spirit,  as  well  as  the 
body,  is  weakened  by  its  scars.  One  can  hardly  see 
how  the  memories  of  Mrs.  Norton's  past  experiences 
with  her  husband  could  have  encouraged  her  to  patience 
or  mercy  or  self-restraint  in  this  last  encounter  with 
him. 

In  her  examination  at  the  trial  in  the  Westminster 
County  Court  she  had  accused  him  of  taking  her 
copyright.  He  had,  in  fact,  assumed  possession  of 
all  her  contracts  with  her  publishers,  to  help  him 
calculate  the  amount  of  her  income;  and  there  was 
no  power  in  English  law  to  force  him  to  relinquish 
them  unless  he  chose.  We  have  his  own  vehement 
denial  that  he  ever  intended  to  keep  them.  But  his 
wife's  past  experience  of  his  word  was  not  such  as 
to  give  her  any  very  great  confidence  in  his  last 
promise  to  her,  if  it  should  be  to  his  advantage  to 
break  it. 

All  her  old  indignation  was  roused,  not  against  him 
individually — for  (in  her  own  words),  "  Gone,  past, 
buried  in  unutterable  scorn  are  the  days  in  which  I 
appealed  either  to  him  or  from  him — but  against  the 
existent  law  and  that  nation  of  gallant  gentlemen  who 
238 


1853-4]         BRINGS   OUT  "ENGLISH   LAWS"  239 

scarcely  care  and  scarcely  know  what  is  the  existing 
law  on  such  subjects." 

She  did  not  return  to  Italy  that  autumn.  We  hear 
of  her  in  November  staying  at  Clumber,  the  country 
place  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  one  of  that  notable 
group  of  High  Church  Peelites  of  whom  the  other 
two  were  Sidney  Herbert  and  Gladstone.  And  early 
the  next  year  she  was  back  in  London,  very  busy,  not 
on  her  interrupted  novel,  but  at  her  old  work  of 
pamphlet  writing — on  the  old  subject  too,  the  in- 
sufferable inequalities  of  the  English  law  for  women ; 
reformed  indeed  ever  so  slightly  by  her  own  Infant 
Custody  Bill,  but  still  extraordinarily  unjust  towards 
the  very  class  most  in  need  of  the  law's  protection. 

The  Crimean  war  broke  out  in  March  1854,  not  the 
most  auspicious  moment,  we  should  think,  for  insti- 
tuting a  reform  of  the  laws  about  women  ;  but  it  did 
not  prevent  her  from  writing  her  pamphlet  on  this 
particular  subject,  "  English  Laws  for  Women  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,"  and  printing  it  at  her  own  expense 
for  private  distribution  some  time  early  in  May  of  the 
same  year.  It  is  almost  forgotten  now,  or  remembered 
only  as  an  undignified  publication  of  private  and 
personal  grievances,  made  still  more  objectionable 
by  the  harsh  and  violent  tone  it  retains  through  all 
its  hundred  and  forty-four  pages  towards  its  principal 
victim.  It  has,  however,  plenty  of  excuse  for  its 
existence.  And  the  impression  it  made  on  the  men 
and  women  of  that  generation  is  incalculable,  coming 
as  it  did  at  a  time  when  public  opinion  had  so  far  out- 
stripped the  law  in  its  judgment  of  the  rights  and 
wrongs  of  women  that  it  was  ready  to  be  set  on  fire 
by  the  story  of  a  woman  who,  to  use  her  own  words, 
"  had  learned  the  English  law  piecemeal  by  suffering 
under  it."    She  goes  on  : 

"  My  husband  is  a  lawyer ;  and  he  has  taught  it  [the 
law]  to  me  by  exercising  over  my  tormented  and 
restless  life  every  quirk  and  quibble  of  its  tyranny; 


24o  "ENGLISH   LAWS   FOR  WOMEN"   [chap,  xix 

acknowledged  tyranny;  acknowledged,  again  I  say, 
not  by  wailing,  angry,  despairing  women,  but  by 
Chancellors,  ex-Chancellors,  legal  reformers,  and 
members  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament." 

But  (to  quote  from  the  beginning  of  her  own  work) : 

" '  It  won't  do  to  have  Truth  and  Justice  on  our 
side  :  we  must  have  Law  and  Lawyers.' 

Charles  Dickens. 

"  1  take  those  words  as  my  text.  In  consequence 
of  the  imperfect  state  of  the  law  I  have  suffered 
bitterly,  and  for  a  number  of  years  :  I  have  lately  been 
insulted,  defrauded,  and  libelled  ;  and  as  the  law  is 
constituted  I  find  redress  impossible. 

"  To  publish  comments  on  my  case  for  the  sake  of 
obtaining  sympathy  ;  to  prove  merely  that  my  husband 
has  been  unjust,  and  my  fate  a  hard  one,  would  be  a 
very  poor  and  barren  ambition.  I  aspire  to  a  different 
object.  I  desire  to  prove,  not  my  own  suffering  or  his 
injustice,  but  that  the  present  law  of  England  cannot 
prevent  any  such  suffering  or  control  such  injustice. 
I  write  in  the  hope  that  the  law  may  be  amended ; 
and  that  those  who  are  at  present  so  ill-provided  as  to 
have  only  '  Truth  and  Justice '  on  their  side,  may 
hereafter  have  the  benefit  of  '  Law  and  Lawyers.' 

"  I  know  all  that  can  be  said  on  my  interference 
with  such  a  subject — all  the  prejudices  and  contempt 
with  which  men  will  receive  arguments  from  a  woman, 
and  a  woman  personally  interested.  But  it  is  of  more 
importance  that  the  law  should  be  altered  than  that 
I  should  be  approved.  Many  a  woman  may  live  to 
thank  Heaven  that  I  had  courage  and  energy  left  to 
attempt  the  task ;  and  since  no  one  can  foretell  the 
future,  even  men  may  pause  ere  they  fling  down  my 
pamphlet  with  masculine  scorn ;  for  the  day  may 
come,  however  improbable,  to  some  one  of  my  readers, 
when  he  would  give  his  right  hand  for  the  sake  of 
sister,  daughter,  or  friend,  that  the  law  were  in  such 
a  condition  as  to  afford  a  chance  of  justice,  without 
the  pain  of  a  protracted  struggle,  or  the  disgrace  of  a 
public  brawl." 


1854]  CRITICISM   OF   HER   PAMPHLET  241 

The  tract  is  largely  taken  up  with  her  own  story, 
told,  however,  with  no  effort  to  please  or  conciliate, 
no  appeal  for  personal  sympathy,  only  as  a  sort  of 
harsh  illustration  of  the  various  defects  of  the  law  as 
it  stood  at  that  day.  Every  statement  she  makes  she 
enforces  with  the  same  kind  of  evidence  which  would 
make  it  hold  good  in  a  bill  for  divorce  or  an  affidavit 
to  support  a  petition,  with  the  requirements  of  both 
which  forms  of  document  she  was,  poor  woman,  only 
too  familiar.  Her  accounts  of  her  husband's  cruelty 
to  her  are  made  in  the  same  ruthless  fashion — stripped 
of  everything  except  what  could  be  proved  by 
witnesses  or  statements  other  than  her  own,  always 
including  the  provocation  she  herself  might  have 
given  him  as  legally  part  of  the  story.  The  result 
is  often  unpleasing. 

She  is,  in  fact,  so  eager  to  entrench  herself  in  an 
impregnable  position  that  she  too  often  offends  as  a 
woman,  even  while  she  convinces  by  her  cause.  But 
it  was  the  cause,  not  the  woman,  she  was  championing 
at  that  particular  moment.  It  was  necessary  that  she 
should  be  justified  in  each  particular  statement  or 
accusation  with  which  her  pages  bristle,  or  her  tract 
against  the  English  laws  became  so  much  waste- 
paper. 

She  was  often  violent,  always  vehement,  descended 
sometimes,  one  feels,  unnecessarily  into  the  painful 
details  of  her  own  miserable  struggle,  yet  never  with 
all  her  digressions  losing  sight  of  the  real  purpose 
which  drove  her  onward ;  concluding  at  last  in  a 
rush  of  passionate,  thrilling  words  which  show  her 
at  her  best. 

"  How  often  in  the  course  of  this  session  will  the 
same  men  who  read  this  appeal  with  a  strong  adverse 
prejudice  be  roused  by  some  thought  in  a  favourite 
author,  touched  by  some  beautiful  pageant  of  human 
feeling,  seen  among  glittering  lights  from  a  side  box  ; 
chanted,  perhaps,  in  a  foreign  tongue.  And  yet  I 
have  an  advantage  over  these,  for  my  history  is  real. 

3i 


242  "  ENGLISH   LAWS   FOR  WOMEN "    [chap,  xix 

I  know  there  is  no  poetry  in  it  to  attract  you.  In  the 
last  act  of  this  weary  life  of  defamation  I  went  down 
in  a  hack-cab,  to  take  part  in  an  ignoble  struggle,  in  a 
dingy  little  court  of  justice,  where  I  was  insulted  by  a 
vulgar  lawyer,  with  questions  framed  to  imply  every 
species  of  degradation.  There  was  none  of  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  of  those  woes  that  affect  you,  when 
some  faultless  and  impossible  heroine  makes  you 
dream  of  righting  all  the  wrongs  in  the  world.  But 
faulty  as  I  may  be,  and  prosaic  and  unsympathised 
with  as  my  position  might  then  be,  it  was  unjust ;  and 
unjust  because  your  laws  prevent  justice.  Let  that 
thought  haunt  you,  through  the  music  of  your 
Sonnambulas  and  Desdemonas,  and  be  with  you  in  your 
readings  of  histories  and  romance,  and  your  criticism 
on  the  jurisprudence  of  countries  less  free  than  our 
own.  I  really  wept  and  suffered  in  my  early  youth 
for  wrong  done,  not  by  me,  but  to  me,  and  the  ghost 
of  whose  scandal  is  raised  against  me  this  day.  I 
really  suffered  the  extremity  of  earthly  shame  without 
deserving  it  (whatever  chastisement  my  other  faults 
may  have  deserved  from  Heaven).  I  really  lost  my 
young  children,  craved  for  them,  struggled  for  them, 
was  barred  from  them,  and  came  too  late  to  see  one 
who  had  died  a  painful  and  convulsive  death,  except 
in  his  coffin.  I  really  have  gone  through  much  that,  if 
it  were  invented,  would  move  you,  but  being  of  your 
everyday  world,  you  are  willing  it  should  sweep  past 
like  a  heap  of  dead  leaves  on  the  stream  of  time,  and 
take  its  place  with  other  things  that  have  gone  drifting 
down 

"  Ou  va  la  feuille  de  rose 
Et  la  feuille  du  laurier. 

"  Will  none  of  you  aid  the  cause  I  advocate,  and 
forget  that  it  was  advocated  by  me  ?  Think  what  it 
must  be  to  spend  all  one's  youth,  as  I  have  spent  mine, 
in  a  series  of  vain  struggles  to  obtain  any  legal  justice. 
Or  do  not  think  at  all  about  me  ;  forget  by  whose 
story  this  appeal  was  illustrated.  I  can  bring  you 
others,  from  your  own  English  law-books  ;  and  let  my 
part  in  this  be  only  as  a  voice  borne  by  the  wind,  as  a 
cry  coming  over  the  waves  from  a  shipwreck,  to  where 
you  stand  safe  on  the  shore,  and  which  you  turn  and 


1854]  LORD   CRANWORTH'S   BILL  243 

listen  to,  not  for  the  sake  of  those  who  call — you  do  not 
know  them — but  because  it  is  a  cry  for  help." 

About  a  month  after  this  pamphlet  was  printed, 
Lord  Cranworth,  the  Chancellor  of  Lord  Aberdeen's 
Ministry,  brought  forward  in  the  Lords  a  Bill  to 
reform  the  English  Marriage  and  Divorce  Laws. 

His  action  in  so  doing,  however,  can  hardly  be 
attributed  to  anything  Mrs.  Norton  had  written  or 
suffered  in  the  matter.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  measure  long 
promised,  long  delayed,  drawn  from  the  findings  of 
a  Royal  Commission  appointed  in  1850  to  look  over 
the  whole  subject.  In  its  first  form,  indeed,  the  Bill 
was  only  a  plan  to  remove  the  jurisdiction  of  all 
matters  matrimonial  from  the  Ecclesiastical  Courts, 
or  Doctors'  Commons,  to  call  it  by  its  familiar  name, 
to  a  special  court  of  their  own,  composed  of  the 
Chancellor  and  various  other  high  dignitaries  of 
the  law,  which  should  have  all  power  to  grant  or 
refuse  divorces,  whether  ;absolute  or  those  amounting 
merely  to  a  judicial  separation,  and  to  consider  all 
questions  involving  the  legal  separation  of  husbands 
and  wives. 

It  was,  however,  at  this  stage  of  its  history  so  little 
a  woman's  measure  that  whereas  in  the  past  a  woman 
could,  though  she  rarely  did,'  obtain  a  divorce  with 
power  to  remarry,  just  as  a  man  could,  by  special 
Act  of  Parliament,  if  the  Lords  decided  that  she 
deserved  it,  the  new  court  was  not  allowed  any 
discretion  in  the  matter,  the  law  being  hard-and- 
fast  that  women  could  not  obtain  this  right  except 
in  one  or  two  monstrous  and  exceptional  cases  of 
injury.  Any  idea  of  equal  legislation  in  the  matter 
was  as  unacceptable  in  England  then  as  now.  Indeed, 
set  forth  by  the  new  Bill,  a  woman's  opportunity 
of  getting  a  divorce,  or  even  a  legal  separation 
from  her  husband  was  even  more  restricted  than 
it  had  been  before,  nor  did  the  proposed  measure 
even   touch   upon  the  confused  injustice  of  a  wife's 


244  "  ENGLISH   LAWS   FOR  WOMEN "    [chap,  xix 

position  when  alienated,  but  not  divorced  from  her 
husband. 

Any  discussion  on  the  subject,  however,  afforded 
Mrs.  Norton  an  opportunity,  which  she  was  not  slow 
to  take  advantage  of.  She  watched  the  Bill's  progress 
through  the  Lords,  listened  to  the  debates  when  it 
came  up  for  a  second  reading,  as  her  keen  use  of 
the  various  absurdities  and  ineptitudes  which  were 
let  fall  on  that  occasion  most  sharply  and  adequately 
proves. 

To  quote  her  own  words  after  the  Bill  had  dis- 
appeared in  Committee,  not  to  be  heard  of  again  that 
session  : 

"  It  drops  and  is  given  up;  the  Chancellor,  like  the 
Runic  sorceress,  exclaims : 

"  Leave  me,  leave  me,  to  repose  ; 

and  all  go  away  home,  like  a  party  of  miners  who 
have  given  up  the  attempt  to  dig  out  persons  buried  in 
the  superincumbent  earth.  They  would  be  very  glad 
to  do  something  towards  amending  the  laws  for 
women,  but  really  '  the  subject  is  so  surrounded  with 
difficulty.' " 

In  the  meantime,  she  herself  continued  to  suffer 
from  the  inadequacy  of  these  very  laws.  To  resume 
her  story  in  her  own  words  : 

"  After  the  creditors'  case  was  over,  Mr.  Norton 
inquired  whether  I  would  •  submit  to  referees '  the 
point  whether  he  ought,  in  honour,  to  abide  by  his 
signature,  and  whether  I  would  name  a  referee  on  my 
part.  I  answered  in  the  affirmative,  and  I  named  as 
my  referee  one  who  may  fairly  claim  to  inspire  as 
much  confidence,  respect,  and  universal  esteem  from 
men  of  all  ranks,  ages,  or  parties  as  I  think  it  ever  was 
the  lot  of  any  person  to  enjoy :  I  named  the  Marquis  of 
Lansdowne.  Mr.  Norton  proposed  his  own  brother, 
Lord  Grantley,  which  nomination  was  declined  as  an 
impossible  choice — impossible,  recollecting  the  circum- 
stances of  the  trial,  the  residence  of  the  witnesses,  and 


1854]  HER   ALLOWANCE   WITHDRAWN  245 

the  nearness  of  connection.  No  other  choice  was  pro- 
posed. Mr.  Norton  either  felt  that  no  unprejudiced 
gentleman  in  England  would  support  him  in  his  legal 
quibble,  or  he  had  never  intended  to  propose  a  choice 
which  could  be  accepted,  which  is  more  than  probable 
From  the  date  of  my  mother's  death  he  has  withheld 
entirely,  and  with  perfect  impunity,  my  income  as  his 
wife.  I  do  not  receive,  and  have  not  received  for  the 
last  three  years  a  single  farthing  from  him.  He  retains, 
and  always  has  retained,  property  that  was  left  in  my 
home — gifts  made  to  me  by  my  own  family  on  my 
marriage,  and  to  my  mother  by  H.R.H.  the  Duchess 
of  York ;  articles  bought  from  my  literary  earnings, 
books  which  belonged  to  Lord  Melbourne,  and,  in 
particular,  a  manuscript  of  which  Lord  Melbourne 
himself  was  the  author  (when  a  very  young  man), 
which  Mr.  Norton  absolutely  refused  to  give  up.  He 
has  a  right  to  everything  I  have  in  the  world,  and  I 
have  no  more  claim  upon  him  than  any  one  of  the 
Queen's  ladies-in  waiting,  who  are  utter  strangers  to 
him.  I  never  see  him.  I  hear  of  him  only  by  attacks 
on  my  reputation,  and  I  do  not  receive  a  farthing  of 
support  from  him.  His  reply  by  attorney  (dated 
April  10,  1854)  to  any  such  demand,  is  to  bid  the 
creditor  'examine  the  will  of  my  mother  in  Doctors' 
Commons,'  thereby  throwing  off  the  mask  of  pre- 
tence he  wore,  and  standing  openly  on  his  legal 
irresponsibility." 


Meanwhile  she  herself  was  in  debt  to  her  creditors, 
in  debt  to  her  bankers,  from  whom  she  had  borrowed 
a  large  sum  to  meet  the  obligations  she  had  already 
incurred  before  she  knew  that  she  was  to  be  deprived 
of  part  of  her  income.  She  was  in  debt  to  her  printers 
for  the  work  on  which  she  was  still  engaged,  hindered 
and  handicapped  in  every  way  for  lack  of  means.  For 
she  was  always  imprudent  in  her  money  arrangements, 
lavish  in  her  generosity  to  those  she  loved — her  two 
sons,  the  youngest  entirely  dependent  on  her  ;  the 
eldest,  whom  she  proudly  describes  about  that  time 
as  "  already  launched  in  life,  employed  in  Her 
Majesty's    service     among    junior    diplomates  :     the 


246  "  ENGLISH   LAWS   FOR  WOMEN "   [chap,  xix 

wisest,  kindest,  and  best  son  who  ever  struggled  to 
do  difficult  duty  between  the  parents  of  a  divided 
home." 

All  literary  work,  moreover,  of  the  kind  on  which 
her  income  depended  was  utterly  at  a  standstill,  for  a 
reason,  indeed,  which  we  need  not  go  far  to  find. 

The  Crimean  war  brought  an  untimely  pause  to 
Lord  Cranworth's  Divorce  Bill.  All  through  the  long 
session  of  1855,  while  the  war  was  being  fought,  the 
Bill  was  sleeping  peacefully  in  one  of  the  pigeon- 
holes of  Chancery.  But  Mrs.  Norton  had  not  been 
pleased  to  see  it  there,  and,  in  spite  of  the  distrac- 
tions and  anxieties  in  which  she  was  herself  involved, 
she  yet  found  time  to  bring  out  her  next  pamphlet, 
"  A  Letter  to  the  Queen  on  Lord  Cranworth's 
Marriage  and  Divorce  Bill."  Not  for  private  circula- 
tion this,  but  copyrighted  and  published  and  sold 
by  Longman,  Brown,  Green  and  Longmans,  in 
December  1855. 

Any  return,  however,  which  she  may  have  received 
from  such  a  sale  would  hardly  compensate  for  the 
money  she  was  obliged  to  forgo,  the  publishers'  offers 
she  was  obliged  to  refuse,  no  longer  having  the  time 
to  fulfil  them  while  engaged  in  this  absorbing  kind  of 
writing,  at  a  moment,  too,  when  her  value  in  the 
literary  market  as  a  writer  of  fiction  had  reached  its 
height  through  the  success  of  her  latest  novel.  But 
such  considerations  never  weighed  very  heavily  with 
her  in  the  kind  of  struggle  she  was  now  engaged  in. 
In  her  own  words  : 

"  My  husband  has  taught  me,  by  subpoenaing  my 
publishers  to  account  for  my  earnings,  that  my  gift  of 
writing  was  not  meant  for  the  purposes  to  which 
I  have  hitherto  applied  it.  It  was  not  intended  that  I 
should  '  strive  for  peace  and  ensue  it '  through  a  life 
of  much  occasional  bitterness  and  many  unjust  trials, 
nor  that  I  should  prove  my  literary  ability  by  pub- 
lishing melodies  and  songs  for  young  girls  and  women 
to  sing  in  happier  homes  than  mine,  or  poetry  and 


1855]       HER   CHALLENGE   TO   MR.   NORTON  247 

prose  for  them  to  read  in  leisure  hours,  or  even  please 
myself  by  better  and  more  serious  attempts  to  advocate 
the  rights  of  the  people  or  the  education  and  interests 
of  the  poor. 

"  He  has  made  me  dream  that  it  was  meant  for  a 
higher  and  stronger  purpose,  that  gift  which  came  not 
from  man,  but  from  God  !  It  was  meant  to  enable  me 
to  rouse  the  hearts  of  others  to  examine  into  all  the 
gross  injustice  of  these  laws,  to  ask  the  nation  of 
gallant  gentlemen  whose  countrywoman  I  am,  for 
once  to  hear  a  woman's  pleading  on  the  subject.  Not 
because  I  deserve  more  at  their  hands  than  other 
women.  Well  I  know,  on  the  contrary,  how  many 
hundreds,  infinitely  better  than  I— more  pious,  more 
patient,  and  less  rash  under  injury — have  watered  their 
bread  with  tears  !  My  plea  to  attention  is,  that  in 
pleading  for  myself  I  am  able  to  plead  for  all  these 
others.  Not  that  my  sufferings  or  my  deserts  are 
greater  than  theirs,  but  that  I  combine,  with  the  fact 
of  having  suffered  wrong,  the  power  to  comment  on 
and  explain  the  cause  of  that  wrong,  which  few 
women  are  able  to  do. 

"  For  this  I  believe  God  gave  me  the  power  of 
writing.  To  this  I  devote  that  power.  I  abjure  all 
other  writing  till  I  see  these  laws  altered.  I  care  not 
what  ridicule  or  abuse  may  be  the  result  of  that 
declaration.  They  who  cannot  bear  ridicule  and  abuse 
are  unfit  and  unable  to  advance  any  cause ;  and  once 
more  I  deny  that  this  is  my  personal  cause — it  is  the 
cause  of  all  the  women  of  England.  If  I  could  be 
justified  and  happy  to-morrow,  I  would  still  strive  and 
labour  in  it ;  and  if  I  were  to  die  to-morrow,  it  would 
still  be  a  satisfaction  to  me  that  I  had  so  striven. 
Meanwhile  my  husband  has  a  legal  lien  on  the  copy- 
right of  my  works.  Let  him  claim  the  copyright  of 
this!" 


This  was  her  "  Letter  to  the  Queen  " — a  very  clever 
arraignment  of  the  Chancellor's  Bill,  both  for  what  it 
proposed  and  for  what  it  left  undone.  It  struck  so  hard, 
in  fact,  at  some  of  that  gentleman's  ponderous  utter- 
ances in  the  debate  of  1854  as  to  call  forth  a  rueful 
protest  from  him  when  he  next  opened  his  mouth  on 


I 


248  "ENGLISH   LAWS   FOR  WOMEN"  [chap,  xix 

the  subject.  Lord  Cranworth  had  remarked  in  defence 
of  that  part  of  his  Bill  which  denied  divorce  to  a 
woman  for  mere  infidelity  of  the  husband,  that  if  a 
woman  could  divorce  on  such  small  ground,  a  man 
who  for  some  reason  wished  his  wife  to  divorce  him 
had  only  to  be  a  little  profligate  to  get  his  freedom 
at  his  wife's  expense.  This  expression,  "  a  little 
profligate,"  was  made  such  unsparing  use  of  that 
the  unfortunate  victim  was  finally  moved  to  deny  he 
ever  said  it,  Hansard's  record  of  his  speech  to  the 
contrary. 

In  this  later  pamphlet  Mrs.  Norton  went  over  all 
the  ground  already  covered  by  her  "  English  Laws," 
drawing  freely,  as  usual,  from  her  own  experience,  but 
with  much  more  restraint  and  reserve  of  personal 
detail,  as  befitted  a  work  for  the  general  public,  which 
the  first,  by  the  way,  was  not.  It  is  interesting  to  find 
a  letter  of  Lord  Brougham's  about  it. 

"December  1855. 
"  It  is  as  clever  a  thing  as  ever  was  written,  and  it 
has  produced  great  good.     I  feel  certain  that  the  Law 
of  Divorce  will  be  much  amended,  and  she  has  greatly 
contributed  to  it." 

Not  only  the  Law  of  Divorce,  but  Lord  Cranworth's 
Bill  to  amend  the  Law  of  Divorce  was  much  amended 
in  the  next  Parliamentary  session.  The  question  of 
divorce  and  remarriage  is  still  open  ;  the  forces  that 
oppose  or  approve  it  are  still  so  actively  engaged  that 
the  discussions  on  the  Bill  during  this  session  are  still 
unusually  interesting ;  and  no  speech  on  the  subject 
is  more  interesting  than  Lord  Lyndhurst's. 

Lord  Lyndhurst  was  by  this  time  a  very  old  man, 
so  infirm  that  he  had  to  be  brought  to  the  Lords 
when  he  attended  in  a  wheeled  chair.  A  quaint  little 
picture  of  himself  and  his  old  friend  and  rival, 
Brougham,  about  this  time  is  found  in  Morley's  "  Life 
of  Gladstone." 


1855-6]  LORD   LYNDHURST  249 

"A  most  interesting  conversation  with  these  two 
wonderful  old  men  at  eighty  and  eighty-six  respect- 
ively (it  was  two  years  later  than  the  time  of  the 
Divorce  Bill),  both  in  the  fullest  possession  of  their 
faculties — Brougham  vehement,  impulsive,  full  of  ges- 
ticulation, and  not  a  little  rambling;  the  other  calm 
and  clear  as  a  deep  pool  upon  rock.  Brougham  at 
last  used  these  words  :  '  I  tell  you  what,  Lyndhurst, 
I  wish  I  could  make  an  exchange  with  you.  I  would 
give  you  some  of  my  walking  power,  and  you  should 
give  me  some  of  your  brains.'  Mr.  Gladstone  adds 
his  opinion  that  the  compliment  was  the  highest  he 
ever  knew  to  be  paid  by  one  human  being  to  another." 


Lord  Lyndhurst's  old  friendship  with  Mrs.  Norton 
never  shows  itself  to  better  effect  than  on  this  occa- 
sion when,  in  several  long  speeches  of  more  than  his 
usual  graceful,  limpid  eloquence,  he  makes  open  use 
of  her  pamphlet,  quoting,  or  it  must  be  reading, 
passages  from  it,  so  identical  are  the  extracts  from 
his  speech  in  Hansard  with  the  original ;  and  finally 
offering  a  series  of  amendments  covering  many  of  the 
points  where  Mrs.  Norton  had  found  the  Bill  especially 
deficient. 

Many  of  these  amendments,  especially  those  affect- 
ing a  married  woman's  legal  status  apart  from  her 
husband,  were  accepted  by  the  first-mover  of  the 
Bill  rather  under  protest  as  beyond  the  scope  of  the 
original  measure,  as  was  perhaps  the  truth.  But 
the  trend  of  public  opinion  was  just  then  too  strong 
to  be  resisted.  During  the  session  of  1856,  for 
instance,  the  Lower  House  was  bombarded  by  more 
than  seventy  petitions  for  the  improvement  of  the  law 
as  it  affected  women  ;  one  of  these  signed,  it  is  said, 
by  more  than  three  thousand  names,  "  among  whom 
were  ladies  who  had  made  the  present  epoch  remark- 
able in  the  annals  of  literature,"  to  quote  the  words 
of  the  M.P.  who  had  been  deputed  by  these  same 
ladies  to  introduce  their  petition  to  the  House. 

The  Bill  passed — not  that  year  indeed,  but  the  next — 

32 


250  "ENGLISH   LAWS   FOR  WOMEN"   [chap,  xix 

in  spite  of  the  steady  opposition  of  all  the  bishops, 
especially  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  and  the  Roman 
Catholic  element  in  the  Lords,  and  Mr.  Gladstone's 
High-Church  stand  against  it  in  the  Commons.  It 
went  into  effect,  January  i,  1858,  and  is  still  the  law 
of  England  in  matters  matrimonial.  With  its  really 
great  reforms,  the  doing  away  with  divorce  by  special 
Act  of  Parliament,  and  with  the  cumbrous  and  expen- 
sive machinery  of  "Doctors'  Commons,"  it  would  be 
absurd  and  untrue  to  say  that  Mrs.  Norton  had  any- 
thing to  do.  This  was  indeed  a  measure  so  sharply 
demanded  by  the  time  that  even  a  great  war  could  not 
delay  it. 

But  the  Bill  contained  a  whole  cluster  of  lesser 
reforms  which,  as  Lord  Cranworth  complained,  were 
really  outside  the  scope  and  plan  of  the  original 
measure,  but  which  make  the  Marriage  Act  of  1857  a 
sort  of  Bill  of  Rights  for  married  women. 

By  Clause  21,  for  instance,  a  wife  deserted  by  her 
husband  may  be  protected  in  the  possession  of  her 
earnings  from  any  claim  of  her  husband  upon  them. 

By  Clause  24  the  new  Court  may  direct  payment  of 
separate  maintainence  to  a  wife  or  to  her  trustee. 

By  Clause  25  a  wife  may  inherit  and  bequeath 
property  like  a  single  woman. 

By  Clause  26  the  wife  separated  from  her  husband 
is  given  the  power  of  contract  and  suing,  and  being 
sued  in  any  civil  proceeding. 

With  all  these  reforms  it  is  quite  fair  to  believe  that 
Mrs.  Norton  had  a  great  deal  to  do,  to  believe  even 
that  without  her  eager  crusade  of  tongue  and  pen  to 
advance  them,  the  Bill  would  have  gone  through 
without  them,  and  the  many  women  who  have  since 
benefited  by  them  would  have  gone  on,  it  may  be 
for  many  years — for  these  reforms  are  slow  in  coming 
— suffering  injustice  without  them. 

It  is  strange  to  think  how  soon  these  services  have 
been  forgotten,  how  entirely  Mrs.  Norton's  name  until 
very  lately  has  been  left  out  of  the  list  of  women  to 


1858]  HER  CLAIM  UPON  WOMEN'S  GRATITUDE     251 

whom  other  women  should  be  grateful.  And  yet  one 
would  think  that  in  that  list,  by  almost  any  measure 
of  practical  achievement  her  name  ought  to  stand 
high,  especially  if  we  add  the  Infant  Custody  Bill  to 
the  account  we  have  just  enumerated. 


CHAPTER  XX 

BRINSLEY'S    MARRIAGE — A   LONDON    SEASON 

George  Norton  had  restored  his  wife's  allowance 
some  time  before  Lord  Cranworth's  Divorce  Bill  had 
created  a  Court  which  might  on  her  appeal  have 
obliged  him  to  do  so ;  but  he  still  continued  his 
dispute  about  the  amount,  how  much,  or  rather  how 
little  he  might  fairly  pay  her ;  and  we  can  feel  the 
exasperation  of  his  wife's  temper  over  his  endless 
procrastinations  and  objections,  in  the  following  letter 
written  by  her  to  her  husband's  legal  adviser,  Sir 
Fitzroy  Kelly. 

"  Sunday. 

"  Dear  Sir  Fitzroy, 

"  I  will  not  say  '  Yes.'  I  say  '  No,'  most  ener- 
getically to  any  proposal  of  shifting  the  miserable 
allowance  of  £400  a  year. 

"  It  is  the  minimum  of  his  own  proposals  (shifting 
and  uncertain),  spreading  over  twenty  years,  offered 
before  he  had  half  what  he  has  now.  In  short,  I 
won't ;  and  there  is  an  end  of  it.  This  is  final.  The 
Duke  of  Newcastle  is  my  trustee. 

"  I  add  this  (as  Mr.  Norton  always  thinks  time  an 
utterly  unimportant  matter) :  that  my  bargain  about 
my  house  is  null  and  void  if  not  complete  by 
Christmas  ;  and  that  I  shall  accordingly  complete  it 
at  all  risks  ;  and  that  my  publisher,  who  originally 
offered  me  £1,000  for  my  book  for  eight  years'  copy- 
right, has  sent  an  offer,  signed,  for  £1,600,  the  copy- 
252 


1854]  LETTER  TO   SIR   FITZROY   KELLY  253 

right  to  return  to  me  at  the  end  of  four  years,  and 
leave  to  publish  in  numbers,  so  as  to  control  it  for  a 
while.  That  I  could  do  this,  and  then  get  more  from 
the  law  courts  than  ever  Mr.  Norton  offered,  is  to 
me  a  matter  of  moral  certainty. 

"  He  may  therefore  do  as  he  likes.  The  position  of 
my  son  Brinsley,  and  the  exasperation  I  feel  at  the 
stupid  haggling  which  always  goes  on,  makes  it  really 
not  worth  the  toss  of  the  dice  which  I  do — the 
temptation  to  me  being  as  strong  as  ever  temptation 
was  to  human  soul,  to  show  him  up — and  the  whole 
scheme  of  hypocrisy  and  pretence  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end — towards  his  wife  and  sons. 

"  I  am  very  sorry.  I  cannot  write  patiently ;  I 
begin  by  wishing  to  avoid,  as  you  say,  the  inutilities 
of  these  hard  phrases,  but  I  cannot.  When  I  think  of 
his  absurd  struggle,  with  his  income,  still  to  leave 
himself  a  loophole  not  to  continue  paying  the  fraction 
out  of  it  of  a  hundred  pounds  quarterly  to  the  mother 
of  his  sons,  he  having  my  portion  from  my  father  of 
£1,500,  besides  all  his  own  resources. 

"  With  regret  for  my  angry  diffuseness,  unconquered 
because  unconquerable, 

11  Believe  me, 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  Car.  Norton." 

In  the  summer  of  1854,  shortly  after  the  close  of 
the  Parliamentary  session,  she  was  recalled  to  Italy 
by  the  marriage  of  her  son  Brinsley  to  Maria  Chiara 
Elisa  Federigo,  a  young  Italian  lady,  with  whom  he 
had  fallen  violently  in  love  during  his  residence  at 
Naples. 

He  could  have  found  no  more  faithful  or  devoted 
wife.  But  the  prospect  of  realising  the  promise  of 
his  early  youth  was  doomed,  for  his  health  failed, 
and  for  the  remainder  of  his  life  he  was  practically 
an  invalid,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  dependent  on 
his  mother. 

During  the  month  of  September,  after  his  marriage, 
his  mother  made  the  acquaintance,  in  Venice,  of  Lady 
Eastlake,  who  wrote : 


254  BRINSLEY'S    MARRIAGE  [chap,  xx 

"  Several  evenings  we  went  to  the  Piazza  to  listen 
to  the  band  and  gaze  at  the  moonlight  on  St.  Mark's, 
which  looks  as  if  made  of  silver  and  gold.  Mrs. 
Norton  generally  joined  us  there,  and  I  studied  her. 
She  is  a  beautiful  and  gifted  woman ;  her  talents  are 
of  the  highest  order,  and  she  has  carefully  cultivated 
them,. has  read  deeply,  has  a  fine  memory,  and  wit  only 
to  be  found  in  a  Sheridan.  No  one  can  compare  with 
her  in  telling  a  story,  so  pointed,  so  happy,  and  so 
easy ;  but  she  is  rather  a  professed  story-teller,  and 
brings  them  in,  both  in  and  out  of  season,  and  gener- 
ally egotistically.  Still  she  has  only  talents  ;  genius 
she  has  nothing  of,  or  of  the  genius  nature  ;  nothing 
of  the  simplicity,  the  pathos,  the  rapid  changes  from 
mirth  to  emotion. 

"  No,  she  is  a  perpetual  actress,  consummately 
studying  and  playing  her  part,  and  that  always  the 
attempt  to  fascinate — she  cares  not  whom. 

11  Occasionally  I  got  her  to  talk  thinkingly,  and  then 
she  said  things  which  showed  great  thought  and 
observation,  quite  oracular  and  not  to  be  forgotten. 
I  felt  at  first  that  she  could  captivate  me,  but  the 
glamour  soon  went  off.     If  intellect  and  perfect  self- 

Eossession  and  great  affected  deference  for  me  could 
ave  subjugated  me,  I  should  have  been  her  devoted 
admirer." 

One  is  always  running  across  this  half-expressed 
arraignment  of  a  manner  too  gracious,  too  eager  to 
please,  to  be  quite  approved  by  those  for  whom  reserve 
and  restraint  are  the  only  sure  tests  of  genuineness. 

A  letter  from  Mrs.  Norton  to  Hayward,  written 
from  Paris  three  months  later  in  the  same  year,  is  not 
without  those  rapid  changes  from  mirth  to  emotion, 
that  pathos  which  Lady  Eastlake  has  taken  for  proof 
of  the  genius  nature,  and  declared  her  so  entirely 
lacking  in  : 


"  Paris,  Decejuber  8,  1854. 

"  My  dear  Avocat, 

"  I  do  assure  you  I  have  seldom  been  so  glad  of 
any  piece  of  news  as  to  hear  that  you  were  to  have  the 


1854-5]  LETTER   TO   HAYWARD  255 

Secretaryship  of  the  Poor  Law  Board.  As  a  recog- 
nition of  ability  and  power  to  serve,  it  is  pleasanter 
even  than  as  a  recognition  of  past  services,  in  a 
different  and  political  literary  way,  and  I  am  sure  no 
man  ever  deserved  more  from  his  friends,  either  for 
his  energy  in  their  behalf  or  the  patience  and  gener- 
osity in  all  matters  concerning  himself.  I  suppose  it 
is  a  very  '  hard  place,'  as  the  maids  say ;  but  you  have 
spirit  and  energy  for  anything,  and  have  proved  your- 
self labour-proof,  a  veritable  salamander  in  the  hot 
forge  of  hard  work.  All  the  better,  too,  is  it  that 
what  you  have  at  last  been  offered  falls  in  with  what 
you  have  written  and  occupied  yourself  about,  as 
there  can  be  none  of  the  discontented  growling  which 
generally  attends  like  a  Greek  chorus  on  occasions  of 
anybody  getting  anything. 

"As  to  my  return,  I  linger,  I  scarcely  know  why, 
in  the  conviction  that  I  shall  only  be  tormented, 
without  the  balance  of  friends  having  time  for  me  and 
my  small  drawing-room,  or  of  my  sisters  being  in 
town,  and  the  belief  that  every  one  will  disperse  after 
a  few  days  of  Parliament.  I  have  nothing  here  except 
the  sort  of  dark  security  from  trouble  the  mole  has, 
who  is  underground,  instead  of  ferreting  about  where 
a  trap  may  pinch  his  neck  and  squeeze  his  bead  eyes 
out  of  his  head.  (N.B.  Not  that  my  eyes  are  '  bead  ' 
eyes.)  I  meant  to  have  gone  home  the  week  after  I 
arrived  here. 

"  I  am  vexed  to  hear  poor  accounts  of  the  Duke  ol 
Newcastle's  health.  I  wrote  to  him.  I  daresay  he 
will  hardly  have  time  to  read  my  letter. 

"I  scrawl  yet  another  line,  and  say  that  poor  Lady 
Ellis  seemed  very  anxious  about  Sir  Henry,  who  has 
taken  drearily  the  news  of  Lockhart's  death. 

"  Yours  ever  truly, 

"  C.  Client." 

From  Paris  she  went  to  Ireland  to  be  with  her  sister, 
Lady  Dufferin,  where  we  hear  of  her  early  in  1855, 
in  one  of  Lady  Dufferin's  letters  : 

11  We  had  two  clever  professors  from  the  *  Godless 
College '  at  Belfast  staying  with  us  [at  Clandeboye] 
last  night.     One  had  a  wife  with  him  to  take  care  of 


256  BRINSLEY'S   MARRIAGE  [chap,  xx 

him,  but  the  other,  being  defenceless,  was  instantly 
spiflicated  by  Caroline,  whom  we  set  at  him,  having 
no  other  way  of  amusing  him,  with  permission  to  do 
her  worst.  The  poor  man  was  bowled  over  like  a  rabbit 
before  he  knew  where  he  was,  and  is  gone  home  in 
a  frenzy  of  admiration  '  of  that  remarkable  woman.'  " 

She  was  by  this  time  fifty  years  old,  old  enough, 
one  would  think,  to  have  begun  to  find  out  that  her 
power  of  "  bowling  men  over  like  rabbits  "  was  not  to 
last  for  ever  ;  old  enough  to  look  back  with  a  kind  of 
impersonal  amusement  upon  her  beautiful  youth. 
Indeed,  there  is  something  of  this  tone  in  a  little  letter 
written  to  Hay  ward  in  1856  with  reference  to  a  new 
book  of  his,  "  Biographical  and  Critical  Essays,"  which 
contained,  discreetly  veiled,  a  mention  of  herself  at  a 
dinner  in  Hayward's  own  chambers — the  very  dinner, 
in  fact,  which  1  have  already  described— just  on  the 
eve  of  her  great  break  with  her  husband  : 

11  Ho !  Was  it  I  who  sounded  so  pretty  in  my  one 
string  of  pearls  ?  I  was  wondering  who  it  could  be 
among  your  large-eyed  Queen  Bees  ;  but  they  have 
more  pearls,  and  were  not  there." 

She  goes  on  rather  sadly,  however  : 

"  My  novel  stands  still.  I  am  worried  and  bothered 
about  my  second  son,  and  I  can't  sit  at  my  desk  like 
a  tranquil  author. 

"  I  think  the  Government  will  crawl  on  and  dry 
their  wings  like  flies  who  have  been  rescued  from  the 
cream-jug  till  some  stronger  catastrophe  cuts  them  off. 

"  Cantillon  Keir  wrote  me  that  he  was  inspecting 
cattle  at  Buchanan  by  way  of  change.  He  stoops  too 
much  over  his  papers  for  health.  I  never  saw  such 
an  attitude,  except  when  Lord  Nugent  used  to  mimic 
a  crow  getting  worms  out  of  frosty  ground — a  piece 
of  mimicking  which  he  was  fond  of  exhibiting  in  the 
'  social  hour'  of  his  frequent  unbending  from  cares  of 
State. 

"  Yours  most  truly, 

"  C.  Client." 


1855]  LETTER   TO    HER   SISTER  257 

The  following  letter  is  dated  from  Paris,  where  we 
find  her  with  increasing  frequency  after  the  transfer 
of  her  eldest  son  from  Naples  to  the  French  capital : 

"Monday,  September  3,  1855. 

"  Dearest  Georgie, 

"  Where  are  you,  and  what  chance  of  Scotland  ? 
I  am  very  uncertain  in  my  projects.  Fletcher  is  not  at 
all  well— the  worse  instead  of  the  better  of  his  cure, 
and  I  think  down-hearted  at  the  doctor  telling  him  his 
cough  would  remain,  do  what  he  would.  Brin  is  at 
Florence.  I  have  not  yet  heard  of  her  [his  wife's] 
confinement,  which  should  be  now  taking  place. 

"  Paris  is  so  full,  and  so  dear  that  it  is  abominable ; 
the  Emperor  very  boastful  and  crowy. 

"  I  went  to  see  old  Dejazet,  her  little  feeble  old  legs 
dressed  in  blue  breeches  and  her  sweet  little  trilling 
but  cracked  voice  singing  military  canzonets  in  The 
Boyhood  of  Napoleon.  She  is,  I  believe,  a  great- 
grandmother  ;  so  runs  the  world  away. 

"  I  have  been,  however,  little  amused  and  anxious 
about  Penny  [Fletcher],  who  is  sadly  overworked,  and 
being  of  a  facile  disposition  all  the  others  skip  away 
(five  away  out  of  a  staff  of  eight),  and  all  the  responsi- 
bility with  Penny,  as  he  is  the  chief  at  present ;  even 
Cowley  only  comes  into  Paris  from  Chantilly  to  set 
tasks. 

"  The  harvest  is  bad,  and  all  very  dear — the  luxury 
of  manufactures  quite  beyond  belief.  A  swarm  and 
glitter  make  up  Paris ;  how  long  it  can  last  is  another 
thing.  A  great  deal  will  be  cleared  by  the  innkeepers 
during  this  Exhibition,  but  the  crowd  of  visitors  do  not 
buy  much,  they  tell  me. 

"  Lucie  Gordon  is  here  staying  with  a  Hindoo  envoy. 
I  met  Victor  Comins  and  Alfred  de  Vigny  there.  I 
laughed  at  one  answer.  One  of  the  guests  said  to 
the  Hindoo,  '  Do  you  in  your  country  accept  the 
Mahomedan  belief  in  the  cow?'  'We  do  note;  we 
do  note  beleefe  in  the  cow,  bote  there  is  greete  beleefe 
in  the  bull,  and  he  is  moche  beloved  amongst  us  in 
consequence.'" 

Even  the  funny  story  at  the  end  does  not  quite 
do  away  with  the  melancholy  impression  left  by  this 

33 


258  A   LONDON   SEASON  [chap,  xx 

letter ;  but  we  are  to  have  one  more  shining  vision 
of  Mrs.  Norton  before  she  goes  down  at  last  into 
the  sad  change  of  old  age. 

In  1858  the  historian  Motley  was  in  London.  He 
was  at  Lady  Stanley's  at  one  of  Thackeray's  lectures 
on  "  The  Four  Georges." 

"  After  the  lecture  was  over  I  expected  to  slip  away 
unnoticed,  but  Lady  Stanley  came  to  me  and  talked 
with  great  kindness,  and  introduced  me  to  several 
persons,  all  of  whom  said  I  was  no  stranger,  or  words 
to  that  effect.  Then  Lady  Airlie  said  to  me,  '  Mrs. 
Norton  wishes  to  make  your  acquaintance.' 

"  I  turned  and  bowed,  and  there  she  was,  looking 
to-day  almost  as  handsome  as  she  has  always  been. 
She  is  rather  above  middle  height.  In  her  shawl  and 
crinoline  of  course  I  could  not  pronounce  upon  her 
figure.  Her  face  is  certainly  extremely  beautiful. 
The  hair  is  raven  black — violet  black,  without  a  thread 
of  silver ;  the  eyes  very  large,  with  dark  lashes,  and 
black  as  death;  the  nose  straight,  the  mouth  flexible 
and  changing,  with  teeth  which  in  themselves  would 
make  the  fortune  of  an  ordinary  face.  Such  is  her 
physiognomy ;  and  when  you  add  to  this  extraordinary 
poetic  genius,  descent  from  that  famous  Sheridan  who 
has  made  talent  hereditary  in  his  family,  a  low,  sweet 
voice  and  a  flattering  manner,  you  can  understand  how 
she  twisted  men's  heads  off  and  hearts  out ;  we  will 
not  be  particular  how  many  years  ago. 

"  She  said,  '  Your  name  is  upon  every  lip.'  I  blushed 
and  looked  like  a  donkey.  She  added,  '  It  is  agree- 
able, is  it  not?'  I  had  grace  enough  to  add,  'You 
ought  to  know,  if  any  one.'  And  then  we  talked  of 
other  things. 

"  She  told  me  she  should  be  happy  to  see  more  of 
me.  A  day  or  two  afterwards,  accordingly,  I  went  to 
call  on  her.  She  received  me  with  great  kindness, 
and  was  very  agreeable.  She  has  a  ready,  rapid  way 
of  talking,  alludes  with  perfect  aplomb  to  her  inter- 
minable quarrel  with  Mr.  Norton.  She  spoke  of  her 
two  sons,  one  of  whom  is  heir  to  a  peerage  and  the 
other  to  beggary.  She  showed  me  a  photo  of  this 
second  one,  who  is  evidently  her  darling,  and  who  by 


^:;<V-  gS 


P-  ^ssj 


MRS.    NORTON. 
From  a  drawing  by  Mrs.  Munro-Fe 


1858]  LADY  SEYMOUR  259 

way  of  improving  his  prospects  in  life  married  a  year 
ago  a  peasant  girl  of  the  island  of  Capri.  Mrs.  Norton 
does  not  even  think  her  very  handsome,  but  says  that 
he  imagines  her  perfection,  particularly  in  her  fancy 
costume.  She  knew  Webster  when  he  was  here,  and 
admired  him  very  much.  She  is  also  very  intimate 
with  the  Queen  of  Holland.  I  do  not  know  that  I 
have  much  more  to  chronicle  of  her  conversation. 
She  was  always  animated  and  interesting.  My 
impressions  of  what  she  must  have  been  were  con- 
firmed ;  certainly  it  was  a  most  dangerous,  terrible, 
beautiful  face  in  its  prime,  and  is  very  handsome 
still." 

In  the  letters  of  this  sympathetic  observer,  who  was 
afterwards  to  become  not  only  a  close  friend  but  a 
close  family  connection,  we  meet  Mrs.  Norton  again 
and  again.  He  goes  to  Wimbledon  to  a  breakfast 
party  given  by  her  sister,  whom  we  have  already 
learned  to  admire  as  Lady  Seymour. 

"  I  found  Mrs.  Norton  looking  out  for  me,  to  intro- 
duce me  to  the  Duchess  of  Somerset.  This  lady  was, 
as  you  may  recollect,  the  famous  Queen  of  Beauty  at 
the  Eglinton  tournament  a  good  many  years  ago.  Her 
daughter,  Lady  Ulrica  St.  Maur,  is  a  very  beautiful 
girl,  closely  resembling  her  mother,  and  obviously 
reproducing,  perhaps  in  an  inferior  degree,  what  the 
Queen  of  Beauty  of  the  tournament  must  have  been  in 
the  blaze  of  her  beauty.  Lady  Dufferin  I  hardly  saw, 
although  I  was  presented  to  her,  for  at  the  same 
moment  the  two  sons  of  the  house  came  up  to  me 
and  began  to  talk.  One  of  them,  apparently  about 
twenty,  had  just  returned  from  India,  where  he  had 
been,  not  with  the  army  exactly,  but  a  kind  of  spectator 
or  volunteer.  He  seemed  intelligent  and  very  hand- 
some. The  other,  Lord  Edward  St.  Maur,  was  a  very 
bright,  good-humoured  lad  of  about  fourteen.  He  said 
he  had  never  travelled,  but  the  very  first  tour  he  made 
he  was  determined  should  be  to  America. 

"  I  then  went  with  Mrs.  Norton  into  the  salle  a 
manger,  and  while  we  were  there  a  plain,  quiet, 
smallish  individual  in  a  green  cutaway  coat,  large 
yellow  waistcoat  and  plaid  trousers,  came  in  for  some 


26o  A   LONDON   SEASON  [chap,  xx 

luncheon,  and  Mrs.  Norton  instantly  presented  me  to 
him.     It  was  Lord  John  Russell." 

But  at  the  end  of  a  somewhat  long  conversation 
with  the  ex-Prime  Minister,  Mrs.  Norton  again  took 
possession  of  him. 

"  Nothing  can  be  kinder  than  she,"  Mr.  Motley 
asserts  over  and  over  again.  "  I  feel  as  if  I  had  known 
her  for  years,  and  I  am  satisfied  she  does  not  dislike 
me,  or  she  would  not  be  presenting  me  to  everybody 
worth  knowing.  While  I  was  talking  to  her  she  said  : 
1  Oh  there  is  my  lover,  I  must  go  and  speak  to  him.' 
She  then  went  up  to  a  plain-looking  benignant  little 
old  gentleman  in  a  white  hat  and  a  kind  of  old-world 
look  about  him  that  seemed  to  require  a  pig-tail  and 
white  top  boots.  She  whispered  to  him  a  moment, 
and  he  came  forward  beamingly,  saying,  '  Delighted,  I 
am  sure,  to  make  Mr.  Motley's  acquaintance,'  and 
shook  me  by  the  hand.  This  was  the  old  Marquis  of 
Lansdowne,  late  President  of  the  Council." 

Mr.  Motley  goes  on  to  describe  a  dinner  at  Lans- 
downe House. 

"  The  hostess  is  Lord  Lansdowne's  daughter-in- 
law,  Lady  Shelburne,  who  is  pretty  and  pleasing. 
The  company  consisted  of  Mrs.  Norton,  Dean  Milman 
and  his  wife,  Lord  Macaulay,  Lady  Dufferin  and  her 
son  Lord  Dufferin,  Hayward,  Miss  Thellusson,  and 
a  gentleman  whose  name  I  did  not  hear — rather 
a  small  party  for  so  large  a  room.  I  had  on  my  left 
the  young  lady  who  declaimed  so  vigorously  at  Lady 
Stanley's,  and  who  is  intelligent  and  agreeable.  On 
my  right  I  had  the  good  luck  to  have  Lady  Dufferin, 
whom  before  I  had  scarcely  seen.  She  is  extremely 
agreeable,  full  of  conversation,  with  a  charming 
manner,  and  has,  or  had,  nearly  as  much  beauty  and 
almost  as  much  genius  as  her  sister,  Mrs.  Norton,  with 
a  far  better  fate.  At  table  by  wax-light  she  looked 
very  handsome,  with  a  wreath  of  white  roses  on  her 
black  hair  :  while  her  son,  a  very  handsome  youth  of 
near  thirty,  sat  near  her  looking  like  her  brother.  Old 
Lord  Lansdowne  sat  beaming  and  genial  in  the  centre 


1858]      DINNER   IN   CHESTERFIELD   STREET  261 

of  his  system,  and  had  evidently  acquired  a  good  deal 
of  fresh  warmth  and  radiance  from  Mrs.  Norton,  who 
sat  next  him,  and  had  been  looking  handsomer  than 
I  had  ever  seen  her  before.  She  was  dressed  in 
white,  and  from  where  I  sat  it  would  have  required 
a  very  powerful  telescope  to  discover  that  she  had 
passed  thirty.  .  .  .  After  dinner  the  conversation 
was  miscellaneous,  but  Hayward,  who  is  a  Quarterly 
reviewer  of  some  reputation  and  a  diner-out,  got  into 
an  argument  with  Macaulay  about  sculpture  and 
painting,  and  the  whole  apple-cart  of  conversation 
was  upset." 

Mrs.  Norton  herself  gave  a  dinner  in  her  own  little 
house  in  Chesterfield  Street. 

"  She  made  the  dinner  for  me,  but  she  was  some- 
what disappointed  in  her  company,  several  of  the 
persons  she  wanted,  among  others  Delane,  having  been 
engaged.  The  company  consisted  of  the  Marquis  of 
Lansdowne,  Lord  Dufiferin  and  his  mother,  Mr. 
Harcourt,  Hayward  the  Quarterly  reviewer  and 
universal  diner-out,  the  Earl  of  Gifford,1  and  Sir 
Hamilton  Seymour." 

Sir  Hamilton  Seymour  was  at  the  head  of  the  British 
Legation  at  Lisbon  when  young  Fletcher  Norton  was  so 
ill  there,  and  very  kind  to  both  mother  and  son  on  that 
unfortunate  occasion.  One  is  interested,  therefore,  to 
hear  this  much  about  him  : 

"  Sir  Hamilton  Seymour  is  not  especially  describ- 
able.  He  is  obviously  intelligent,  caustic,  and 
apparently  good-humoured,  and  with  a  good  deal  of 
the  usage  du  monde  to  be  expected  in  a  veteran  diplo- 
matist. He  is  still  comparatively  young,  but  has  laid 
himself  up  on  a  pension.  I  do  not  remember  anything 
especially  worth  reporting  of  this  dinner.  The  con- 
versation   rolled    on    the   accustomed    wheels.      But 

1  The  Earl  of  Gifford  was  the  nobleman  whom  Lady  Dufferin 
married  on  his  deathbed  in  1862.  Motley  describes  him  as  "about 
thirty-five,  plain-looking,  intelligent,  spectacled,  and  a  sculptor  of 
remarkable  talent." 


262  A   LONDON   SEASON  [chap,  xx 

where  two  such  persons  as  Mrs.  Norton  and  Lady 
Dufferin  were  present,  you  may  imagine  that  it  was 
not  slow.  Mrs.  Norton,  however,  was  a  good  deal 
indisposed,  so  much  so  as  to  be  obliged  to  leave  the 
table.  She  recovered,  however,  and  remained  till 
12.30  in  her  salon,  at  which  time  Hayward  and  myself 
retired.  The  descriptions  of  Mrs.  Norton  have  not 
been  exaggerated.  In  the  noon  of  her  beauty  she 
must  have  been  something  wondrous." 

At  other  times  in  this  same  little  salon  Mr.  Motley 
came  upon  Stirling  of  Keir,  whom  he  liked  very  much. 

11  He  is  mild,  amiable,  bald-headed,  scholarlike,  an 
M.P.,  and  a  man  of  large  fortune  and  ancient  family." 

At  another  time  he  found  Owen  Meredith,  or  the 
old  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  toddled  in  and  sat 
drinking  in  every  word  she  said  with  great  delight. 

She  also  made  arrangements  for  him  to  meet  that 
very  great  lady  and  her  own  good  friend,  the  Duchess 
of  Sutherland. 

"  On  Thursday  I  went  with  Mrs.  Norton  and  Stirling 
by  rail  to  Cliveden.  I  had  received  an  invitation  from 
the  Duchess  through  Mrs.  Norton,  entirely  unaware, 
as  I  had  never  been  presented  to  her.  I  suppose  you 
will  like  a  description  of  her.  There  is  something 
very  plenteous  and  bountiful  and  sunny  in  her  aspect. 
She  is  tall,  and  very  large,  and  carries  herself  with  a 
very  good-natured  stateliness.  Her  hair  is  blond- 
silvered,  her  features  are  large  and  well-chiselled,  her 
smile  is  very  beaming,  and  there  is  benevolence  and 
sunshine  in  every  look  and  word.  With  her  ripe, 
autumnal,  exuberant  person  and  radiating  expression, 
she  looks  like  a  personified  Ceres,  and  ought  always 
to  be  holding  a  cornucopia  in  her  right  hand." 

And  not  long  after  we  find  Mr.  Motley  at  Frampton 
Court  on  a  visit  to  Brinsley  Sheridan,  whom  he  finds 
to  have  "  a  good  deal  of  the  family  fascination,  being 
still  very  handsome,  with  a  very  winning  address." 
By  this  time  he   had   met  all   the  survivors  of  that 


1858]  FRAMPTON    COURT  263 

brilliant,  beautiful  group  of  brothers  and  sisters  which 
made  such  an  impression  on  Fanny  Kemble  when  she 
first  saw  them  assembled  together  in  Mrs.  Norton's 
crowded  little  drawing-room  at  Storey's  Gate  a  whole 
generation  before. 

A  new  measure  of  impressions,  new  standards  of 
comparison  had  come  into  use  in  the  meantime,  and 
we  might  have  reason  to  mistrust  the  romantic  de- 
scription of  the  gifted  young  actress  in  the  reign  of 
William  IV.  if  we  did  not  find  it  thus  strengthened 
and  confirmed  by  one  of  our  own  cool-blooded  coun- 
trymen, a  man  whom  we  may  still  fairly  think  of  as 
one  of  our  own  times.  But  so  it  is  ;  and  indeed  it  is 
pleasant  to  be  thus  convinced  that  the  tradition  of  the 
Sheridan  wit  and  the  Sheridan  beauty  is  founded  on  a 
reality  so  strong,  so  vital,  so  unrelated  to  any  changing 
fashion,  that  Mrs.  Norton  would  seem  just  as  enchant- 
ing, just  as  beautiful  by  the  very  last  standards  of  the 
present  as  she  did  to  her  own  generation,  which  is 
the  past. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

DEATH    OF    FLETCHER — "  THE    LADY   OF    LA   GARAYE  " — 
"  LOST  AND   SAVED  " 

It  is  well  that  we  should  have  this  last  radiant  glimpse 
of  Mrs.  Norton  before  she  entered  into  the  shadow  of 
her  melancholy  closing  years. 

At  the  beginning  of  1859  sne  was  in  Edinburgh 
during  the  celebration  of  the  centenary  of  the  birth  of 
Robert  Burns.  The  following  letter  is  one  she  wrote 
to  Hayward  on  that  occasion  : 

"  EDINBURGH,  January  27,  1859. 

"  Dear  Avocat, 

"  I  send  by  Post  a  Scotsman,  because  there  are 
some  lines  by  me  on  Burns.  Pray  go  to-and-fro 
praising  them  !  It  did  not  occur  to  me  to  try  for  the 
•  Crystal  Prize,'  but  you  see  it  is  won  by  a  woman — 
huzza !  Miss  Isabel  Craig  is  Scottish  by  birth,  and  was 
humble  in  position,  having  begun  by  making  stocks 
for  gentlemen's  neckcloths.  She  afterwards  wrote  for 
Scotsman  and  Chambers,  and  was  after  that,  female 
secretary  to  a  Society — I  think  called,  for  the  "  Pro- 
motion of  Social  Science  " — in  Waterloo  Place. 

"  I  have  long  admired  her,  and  read  her  poems  to 
Lady  Falkland  when  she  was  ill  last  summer.  I  hope 
you  will  like  my  lines;  on  the  Poet  and  Man — not 
Angel !  and  so  I  say  good-bye. 

"  I  missed  the  Ayr  dinner,  which  I  intended  to  have 
contemplated,  by  catching  a  cold  walking  in  the  wind 
and  rain,  in  petticoats  as  short  as  Tarn  o'Shanter's 
Witch's  sark. 

264 


1 8s  9]  LETTER   TO    HAYWARD  265 

11  Stirling  also  caught  a  bad  cold  (not  from  adopting 
a  feminine  costume)  and  was  unable  to  attend  the 
dinner.     He  meant  to  have  gone  to  Ayr. 

"  Edinburgh  was  very  quiet  on  the  '  Centenary  '  day. 
Even  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Scotch  is  frappe  a  la 
glace.  It  is  a  new  acquaintance,  and  they  don't  feel 
familiar  enough  with  it  to  be  jolly — and  think  of  three 
thousand  sitting  down  to  Temperance  tea-trays!  I'd 
as  lief  be  a  duck  and  sit  in  a  pond  with  my  chin  upon 
duckweed.  As  it  is,  my  chin  is  obliged  to  rest  on 
the  edge  of  a  warm  gruel-bowl,  where  with  discon- 
solate snufflings  I  consider  whether  a  hundred  years 
hence  (when  it  can  do  me  no  good)  people  will  be 
reading  '  Hayward's  biography  of  that  remarkable 
woman,'  and  going  to  look  at  the  turnpike  gate  on  the 
road  from  Guildford  to  Shalford  on  the  scene  of  in- 
spiration for  the  story  of  Rosalie.     Adieu  ! 

"  The  by  -you  -appreciated-  and  -indeed  -over  -com- 
plimented-and-patiently-indulged-but-by-many- others- 
not-sufficiently-valued  Poetess, 

"  Caroline  Norton, 

alias 
"  Caroline  Client." 

But  the  autumn  of  1859  brought  the  great  catas- 
trophe of  her  later  life — the  death  of  her  eldest  son 
Fletcher  of  consumption,  at  the  British  Embassy  in 
Paris,  in  the  very  room  where  his  uncle  Charles  had 
died  of  the  same  disease  twelve  years  earlier. 

The  loss  of  this  son  was  a  crushing  blow,  from  which 
she  never  really  recovered.  There  still  exists  in  the 
possession  of  one  of  her  nieces  a  long  letter  she  wrote 
on  this  occasion  describing  his  last  illness  and  last 
hours.  The  whole  letter  is  as  impressive  as  the  genius 
of  its  writer  could  make  it ;  poignantly  simple,  yet  full 
of  that  strange  intensity  of  thought  and  sensation 
which  comes  to  some  minds  in  periods  of  exceptional 
suffering,  as  if  each  smallest  sensation  received,  it 
may  be,  almost  unconsciously  at  the  time,  had  been 
burned  into  the  brain  by  fire. 

She  begins  at  the  moment  when,  almost  in  his  usual 
health,  he  left  her  in  Chesterfield  Street,  where  he  had 

34 


266  DEATH   OF   FLETCHER  [chap,  xxi 

been  passing  his  leave,  to  go  back  to  Paris  to  prepare 
for  his  departure  to  his  new  post  at  Athens,  where  his 
mother  expected  to  accompany  him.  But  he  was  ill 
when  she  rejoined  him,  almost  immediately,  in  Paris. 
The  letter  goes  on  to  describe  her  alarm  at  the  change 
which  had  taken  place  in  him  during  even  those  few 
days ;  his  exceeding  weakness,  which  continued  and 
increased  and  would  not  respond  to  treatment,  till  at 
last  death  came  by  the  gradual  extinction  of  all  physical 
forces,  all  power  to  go  on  living. 

He  said  with  a  sigh  one  day,  "  I  did  not  know  it  was 
so  painful  to  die  merely  of  exhaustion." 

Indeed,  so  intangible  was  his  malady  that  it  was 
some  time  before  they  resigned  themselves  to  the 
knowledge  that  it  was  to  be  fatal,  and  for  some  time 
she  went  on  bravely  with  what  she  afterwards  de- 
scribed as  the  thing  so  difficult  in  this  world  as  to 
be  almost  impossible — the  task  of  amusing  an  invalid 
when  you  know  (though  the  sufferer  does  not  know) 
that  he  is  dying.     To  quote  again  from  the  letter  : 

"  He  was  very  fond  of  music,  and  on  September  28 
(just  a  fortnight  before  he  died)  I  got  some  Tyrolese 
to  sing  in  an  outer  room,  but  he  was  already  very 
weak,  and  one  of  their  pieces  was  the  imitation  of  the 
bells  of  a  mountain  village  dying  away  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  he  was  moved  to  tears,  and  I  sent  them 
away.  The  last  music  he  ever  heard  was  his  brother's 
singing  to  the  guitar,  and  even  that  was  heard  from 
the  inner  room,  where  Brin  sat  playing  and  singing 
as  low  as  he  could  control  his  strong  voice  ;  and  even 
that  tried  Fletcher,  so  that  we  never  did  more  in 
that  way. 

"  The  morning  of  the  day  he  died  he  said,  '  I  feel 
very  strange.' 

"  I  said,  '  Worse,  dear  ? ' 

"  He  said,  '  No,  dear.  Don't  look  at  me  with  such 
kingdom-come  eyes.  I  only  feel  strange.  There  is 
no  other  way  of  expressing  it.' 

"  1  said  to  Dr.  Chepmell  (who  stayed  with  him  most 


1859]  HIS   LAST   HOURS  267 

anxiously  and  kindly),  '  If  he  does  not  rally  to-day,  he 

will  never  rally  at  all.' 

11  Dr.  Chepmell  said,  '  It  is  a  critical  day.' 

"  I   afterwards   learned   that  he   had  said   Fletcher 

would  not  live  forty-eight  hours." 

But  it  seemed  to  come  suddenly  at  last. 

Not  only  his  brother,  but  his  father  had  been  sent 
for  as  soon  as  his  condition  became  alarming,  and  were 
with  him  when  he  died  ;  and  his  mother  again  saw  her 
husband,  whom  she  had  met  last  in  court,  when  she 
had  hardly  been  able  to  bear  it  because  in  his 
eagerness  for  his  own  defence  he  had  come  and  sat 
down  beside  her  as  near  as  the  skirting-board  of  the 
court  would  allow.  He  was  much  nearer  now, 
kneeling  with  bowed  head  on  the  other  side  of  his 
son's  couch,  where  Fletcher  lying,  with  his  head  on 
his  mother's  shoulder,  could  see  and  speak  to  him. 
Almost  the  last  wrords  the  young  man  said  were 
addressed  to  him,  "  Dear  father." 

Mrs.  Norton  goes  on  : 

"Towards  evening  he  said,  'Quelle  etrange  niiit!' 
Then  after  a  silence,  '  I  do  not  see  you — any  of  you — 
dear  ones.  But  I  see,  oh!  what  is  it  1  see?  So 
many — so  many — so  beautiful.  Beautiful.'  It  is  im- 
possible for  words  to  describe,  or  for  those  who  saw 
it  ever  to  forget,  the  wonderful  radiance  of  his  face 
while  he  said  this,  or  the  expression  of  earnest 
ecstasy  in  the  beautiful  eyes  that  no  longer  saw  the 
things  of  earth.  No  picture  of  saints  and  martyrs 
that  I  ever  beheld  equalled  the  intense  beauty  or 
rapt  look  of  his  countenance.  He  said  in  a  soft,  sad 
tone,  '  Mother.'  That  was  the  last  word  he  ever 
spoke. 

"We  could  scarcely  tell  when  he  died,  but  the 
restlessness,  the  sadness,  and  the  ecstasy  all  passed 
out  of  his  face,  and  there  was  nothing  but  peace  ;  and 
we  had  only  to  close  his  beautiful,  soft  eyes,  that  from 
the  hour  they  opened  on  this  world  had  never  looked 
hardly,  or  scornfully,  or  unkindly  on  any  human 
being.     I   am  thankful,  when   so  many  women   have 


268  DEATH    OF   FLETCHER  [chap,  xxi 

soldier  sons  dying  far  away  from  them,  that  I  was  per- 
mitted to  witness  this  blessed,  gentle  creature  go  from 
us  in  such  peace.  'The  coffin  rested  the  night  before 
it  was  carried  to  England  to  be  buried,  at  the  Church 
of  the  Madeleine  in  Paris,  where  he  used  to  attend  the 
service  on  Sundays.'  It  was  transported  next  day 
to  England,  to  Kettlethorpe,  in  Yorkshire.  He  lies 
buried  there  now,  in  the  same  grave  with  my  little 
Willie,  who  died  years  ago  from  the  effects  of  a  fall 
from  his  pony.  A  chapel  which  formerly  stood  on 
Wakefield  Bridge,  in  memory  of  the  young  Duke  of 
York,  who  was  killed  there  in  1460,  and  which 
Mr.  Norton  had  formerly  bought  and  had  removed 
to  his  grounds,  was  hung  with  black  to  receive 
the  coffin  previous  to  interment.  And  it  was  carried 
round  the  little  lake  over  the  green  sward  without 
the  sound  of  a  footfall,  or  any  sound  but  the  singing 
of  the  birds  in  a  tiny  island  in  the  lake,  opposite 
the  door  of  the  chapel.  On  the  stone  that  covers  him 
is  engraved,  '  Parva  Domus,  Magna  Quies.' 

"  A  more  patient  sufferer  never  went  to  his  rest ; 
nor  did  parents  ever  lose  a  son  of  more  promise. 
He  was  fond  of  his  profession,  understood  many 
foreign  languages,  wrote  well  in  verse  and  prose,  but 
was  more  humble  and  diffident  than  any  one  I  ever 
was  acquainted  with.  We  lived  together  in  many 
different  countries,  and  wherever  he  once  lived  I  am 
sure  he  has  left  friends  who  will  regret  him  and  be 
sorry  for  our  loss." 

Many  months  after  Fletcher's  death  she  wrote  again 
on  the  same  subject,  but  this  time  in  poetry.  In  her 
own  words  about  one  of  her  own  heroines,  "  she 
lamented  in  verse  when  she  ceased  to  lament  in  tears. 
Ah  !  believe,  she  lamented  still." 

"  In  the  Storm 

"  In  Memory  of  My  Son 
"Written  at  Taymouth,  Perthshire. 

"  If,  going  forth  in  the  snow  and  the  hail, 
In  the  wind  and  the  rain, 
On  the  desolate  hills,  in  the  face  of  the  gale, 
I  could  meet  thee  again, 


1859]  "IN  THE  STORM"  269 

"  Ah  !  with  what  rapture  my  bosom  would  beat 
And  my  steps  onward  pass, 
With  a  smile  on  my  lip,  while  the  thin  driving  sleet 
Soaked  through  the  grass. 
"  But  never — the  hour  can  never  have  birth 
That  would  gladden  me  thus  ; 
There  are  meetings,  and  greetings,  and  welcomes  on  earth, 
But  no  more  for  us. 

"  No  more  shall  thy  letters  come  in  with  the  morn, 
Making  sunshine  for  hours, 
With  thoughts  of  an  innocent  tenderness  born, 
Or  a  spray  of  dried  flowers  ; 

M  With  praises  whose  love  used  to  cheer  and  to  bless, 
Running  through  every  line  ; 
And  fond  closing  words  that  felt  like  a  caress 
Which  thy  soul  gave  to  mine. 

"  The  grey  clouds  are  scudding  in  vaporous  shrouds 
O'er  a  sky  dark  as  lead  : 
I  think  of  the  tombs  that  are  planted  in  crowds — 
Pale  homes  of  the  dead. 
"  I  think  does  the  same  wind  that  sweeps  by  me  now, 
As  it  shivers  and  moans, 
Thrill  the  pools  in  that  graveyard  of  half-melted  snow, 
By  the  moss-dripping  stones  ? 
"And  I  cry  in  my  anguish,  'Appear,  as  in  life — 
And  my  soul  shall  not  fear  ; 
Pass  over  this  sea  of  my  trouble  and  strife.' 
But  the  winds  only  hear. 

"The  rush  of  the  wild  river  rolling  along 
Is  loud  in  my  ear — 
The  wind  through  the  beech-trees  is  heavy  and  strong, 
But  that  sound  cometh  clear. 

"The  turbulent  waters  drive  on  in  their  force, 
Like  the  thoughts  in  my  breast — 
But  the  stones  lying  deep  in  the  torrent's  wild  course, 
Say  :  '  Under  is  rest.' 

"  Under,  deep  under  !     But  lo  I     While  I  dream, 
From  a  vanishing  cloud 
The  pale  moon  looks  forth,  with  her  strange,  tranquil  gleam, 
Like  a  ghost  in  its  shroud. 


270  DEATH   OF   FLETCHER  [chap,  xxi 

"  And  I  think  of  the  rest  in  the  dark  waters   near, 
To  its  stony  bed  given  ; 
And  I  think  of  that  light  shining  gentle  and  clear  ; 
1  There  is  rest  too,  in  heaven.' 

"  Till  the  wild  storm  subsiding,  forth  comes  by  the  moon 
One  unrising  star  ; 
Is  there  rest?  but  the  earth  seems  so  near,  as   I   swoon, 
And  the  heavens  so  far  ! " 


She  writes  to  her  sister  from  Dinan,  in  Brittany, 
where  she  spent  the  first  months  after  her  bereave- 
ment: 

"  Decetnber  12. 

"  Dear  Georgie, 

"Thank  you  for  writing  to  me  about  Nell.  I 
am  sorry  I  did  not  tell  you  I  was  here;  but  I  am 
more  dead  than  alive  half  my  time,  and  the  other 
half  I  spend  on  Brin's  little  ones  and  their  odd  home 
here.  .  .  . 

"  This  place  is  strange  and  beautiful.  A  small  town 
built  on  a  height  with  a  bastion  all  round,  and  immense 
towers  and  gateways ;  the  most  lovely  valley,  '  la 
vallee  des  Noyers,'  lies  outside,  and  you  seem  looking 
down  into  another  world  as  you  look  into  it  over  the 
rampart  wall  outside  the  church.  But  I  have  been  so 
ill  here  I  have  scarcely  seen  anything.  Brin  has  a 
comfortable,  though  rather  shut-in  lodging,  with  a 
woman  who  understands  embroidery  for  the  priests' 
vestments  in  the  churches  of  Brittany. 

"  He  is  poorly,  irritable,  and  dejected,  and  Mariuccia 
very  anxious.  The  children  are  well,  poor  darlings ! 
and  come  eagerly  of  a  morning  to  the  little  boarding- 
house  just  outside  the  town  where  I  live. 

"lam  going  away  now,  if  I  am  well  enough  for  the 
journey.  I  shall  be  glad  to  know  poor  dear  Nell  safe 
home — not  selfishly,  but  for  her.  I  see  you  think  it 
would  comfort  me,  but  there  are  strokes  for  which 
there  is  no  comfort ;  no  one  can  come  or  go  now  that 
will  make  any  difference  to  me. 

"'The  stately  ships  move  on 
To  their  haven  under  the  hill'; 


1860-61]         "THE   LADY   OF   LA   GARAYE"  271 

but  it  is  ended  for  me  in  this  world ;  all  gleams  of 
better  days  were  with  him,  and  have  gone  out  into 
darkness." 

There  is  a  little  note  from  her  to  her  publishers, 
written  on  her  return  to  England,  which  I  give,  be- 
cause it  shows  how  utterly  she  had  let  go  life's  weary 
tasks  for  a  time  after  her  son's  death,  but  also  how 
soon  she  resumed  them. 

"Chesterfield  Street,  Mayfair, 
"February  6,  i860. 

"  Gentlemen, 

"  1  will  correct  the  brief  biography  I  found  lying 
here  on  my  return  to  England,  if  you  will  inform  me 
whether  the  book  is  already  printed  off  or  not,  as  1 
see  the  date  of  your  letter  is  December  last. 

"  Yours  obli'd, 
"C.N. 

"  I  cannot  say  the  notice  you  sent  is  correct. 

"To  Messrs.  Richard  Griffin  &  Co.,  Publishers, 
"Ave  Maria  Lane." 


Mrs.  Norton's  last  long  poem,  "The  Lady  of  La 
Garaye,"  the  only  one  of  her  works  which  is  easily 
attainable  to-day,  was  published  by  Macmillan  late 
in  1861.  In  the  first  edition  both  frontispiece  and 
vignette  on  the  title-page  were  hers — not  only  her 
sketches,  but  done  by  her  on  the  wooden  block  from 
which  the  impression  was  printed.  The  portrait  of 
the  Lady  of  La  Garaye  is  a  copy  of  an  authentic  picture 
which  Mrs.  Norton  had  found  in  one  of  the  religious 
houses  of  Dinan,  the  sketch  of  the  ruined  chateau  and 
its  ivy-covered  gateway  having  been  made  originally 
by  herself  during  the  summer  after  her  son's  death, 
part  of  which  she  spent  in  Brittany. 

In  regard  to  the  poem  itself,  she  hastens  to  inform 
us  in  her  introduction  : 

"  Nothing  is  mine  but  the  language  in  which  it  is 


272  "THE    LADY   OF    LA    GARAYE "     [chap,  xxi 

told.  I  have  respected  that  mournful  romance  of  real 
life  too  much  to  spoil  its  lessons  with  any  poetical 
licence." 

It  is  the  story  of  a  noble  lady,  hopelessly  crippled 
by  a  fall  from  her  horse  in  the  first  years  of  her 
marriage,  and  of  all  the  long  remainder  of  her  life  spent 
by  her  and  her  devoted  husband  in  the  care  of  those 
sick  and  crippled  like  herself.  In  its  day  it  was  much 
admired  and  much  read,  and  is  still  remembered,  if 
not  read,  by  those  on  whose  youth  it  made  its  first 
impression.  Its  superiority  over  her  other  efforts  in 
narrative  and  descriptive  poetry  is  so  marked  as  to 
put  her  quite  in  another  class  of  poetic  achievement 
from  that  which,  without  it,  she  would  be  qualified  to 
occupy. 

We  find  in  it,  indeed,  all  her  old  faults,  her  diflfuse- 
ness  of  style  and  superabundance  of  ornament ;  all  her 
old  limitations  towards  ultimate  truth  and  speculative 
thought;  but  never  more  pardonably  than  in  its  pages, 
because  the  story  itself  and  its  surroundings  were 
such  as  gained  rather  than  lost  by  the  wealth  of 
radiant  imagery  which  came  almost  too  easily  at  her 
bidding,  while  the  story's  lesson,  that  noble  con- 
clusion of  a  broken  and  tragic  youth,  was  the  one 
of  all  others  she  was  most  competent  to  treat — the 
one  most  fit  to  inspire  all  that  was  lovely  and  beautiful 
in  her  eager  fancy. 

Every  page  of  the  poem  is  a  confession  of  her  own 
deepest  beliefs,  her  strongest  consolations,  her  last 
entrenched  illusions.  And  reading  it,  we  are  still 
amazed  by  the  unextinguishable  youthfulness  of  this 
spirit,  the  hold  it  still  retains  upon  joy  and  hope,  and 
all  the  nobler  pleasures  of  sense  and  emotion,  in  spite 
of  the  long  struggle  her  life  had  been  between  her 
own  insistent  desire  for  happiness  and  the  fate  which 
almost  from  the  beginning  seemed  to  have  put  all 
happiness  beyond  her  grasp. 

The  poem  is  dedicated  to  Lord  Lansdowne. 


1861J  DEDICATION  273 

"  Friend  of  old  days,  of  suffering,  storm,  and  strife, 
Patient  and  kind  through  many  a  wild  appeal  ; 
In  the  arena  of  thy  brilliant  life 
Never  too  busy  or  too  cold  to  feel  : 

"  To  thee  I  dedicate  this  record  brief 
Of  foreign  scenes  and  deeds  too  little  known  ; 
This  tale  of  noble  souls  who  conquered  grief 
By  dint  of  tending  sufferings  not  their  own. 

"Thou  hast  known  all  my  life  :  its  pleasant  hours, 
How  many  of  them  have  I  owed  to  thee  ? 
Its  exercise  of  intellectual  powers, 
With  thoughts  of  fame  and  gladness  not  to  be. 

"Thou  knowest  how  Death  for  ever  dogged  my  way, 
And  how  of  those  I  loved  the  best,  and  those 
Who  loved  and  pitied  me  in  life's  young  day, 
Narrow  and  narrower  still  the  circle  grows. 

"Thou  knowest — for  thou  hast  proved— the  dreary  shade 
A  first-born's  loss  casts  over  lonely  days  : 
And  gone  is  now  the  pale,  fond  smile,  that  made 
In  my  dim  future,  yet,  a  path  of  rays. 

"  So  that  my  very  soul  is  wrung  with  pain, 
Meeting  old  friends  whom  most  I  love  to  see. 
Where  are  the  younger  lives,  since  these  remain  ? 
I  weep  the  eyes  that  should  have  wept  for  me. 

"  But  all  the  more  I  cling  to  those  who  speak 
Like  thee,  in  tones  unaltered  by  my  change  ; 
Greeting  my  saddened  glance,  and  faded  cheek, 
With  the  same  welcome  that  seemed  sweet  and  strange 

"  In  early  days  :  when  I,  of  gifts  made  proud, 
That  could  the  notice  of  such  men  beguile, 
Stood  listening  to  thee  in  some  brilliant  crowd, 
With  the  warm  triumph  of  a  youthful  smile. 

"  Oh,  little  now  remains  of  all  that  was. 
Even  for  this  gift  of  linking  measured  words, 
My  heart  oft  questions,  with  discouraged  pause, 
Does  music  linger  in  the  slackened  chords  ? 

"Yet,  friend,  I  feel  not  that  all  power  is  fled, 
While  offering  to  thee,  for  the  kindly  years, 
The  intangible  gift  of  thought,  whose  silver  thread 
Heaven  keeps  untarnished  by  our  bitterest  tears. 

35 


274  "THE   LADY   OF   LA    GARAYE "     [chap,  xxi 

"  So,  in  the  brooding  calm  that  follows  woe, 
This  tale  of  La  Garaye  I  fain  would  tell, 
As,  when  some  earthly  storm  hath  ceased  to  blow, 
And  the  huge,  mounting  sea  hath  ceased  to  swell : 

"  After  the  maddening  wrecking  and  the  roar, 
The  wild  high  dash,  the  moaning  sad  retreat, 
Some  cold  slow  wave  creeps  faintly  to  the  shore, 
And  leaves  a  white  shell  at  the  gazer's  feet. 


Another  friend  of  Mrs.  Norton's  was  quite  as  beauti- 
fully remembered  in  the  same  poem — Sidney  Herbert. 

A  short  time  after  the  great  agitation  of  the  Corn 
Laws  in  August  1846,  Mr.  Herbert  had  married 
Elizabeth,  daughter  of  General  Charles  Ashe  a  Court, 
whom  he  had  known  as  a  child.  Indeed,  there  is  a 
story  that  while  Miss  a  Court  was  still  a  little  girl  she 
had  already  made  up  her  mind  about  the  handsome 
lad  whom  she  often  saw  at  her  father's  place  in 
Wiltshire,  and  openly  announced  that  when  she  grew 
up  she  was  going  to  marry  "  that  boy." 

Mr.  Herbert  was  Secretary  of  State  at  War  while 
the  British  army  was  at  the  Crimea,  and  came  in  for 
a  great  deal  of  the  blame  showered  upon  the  War 
Office  for  the  breakdown  of  the  British  commissariat 
at  that  time.  His  tireless  service  during  these  trying 
years  had  seriously  injured  his  health,  but  he  had 
remained  at  his  post,  except  for  a  few  months  when 
his  friends  were  out  of  power,  initiating  and  carrying 
out  reforms  which  late  experience  had  shown  to  be  so 
necessary  in  the  army,  until  he  was  suddenly  struck 
down  by  Bright's  disease  and  died  in  November  1861. 

"  Even  as  I  write,"  says  Mrs.  Norton, 

"  Before  me  seem  to  rise, 
Like  stars  in  darkness,  well-remembered  eyes, 
Whose  light  but  lately  shown  on  earth's  endeavour, 
Now  vanished  from  this  troubled  world  for  ever. 
Oh,  missed  and  mourned  by  many,  I  being  one, — 
Herbert,  not  vainly  thy  career  was  run  ; 
Nor  shall  Death's  shadow,  and  the  folding  shroud, 
Veil  from  the  future  years  thy  worth  allowed 


1861]  SIDNEY   HERBERT  275 

Since  all  thy  life  thy  single  hope  and  aim 

Was  to  do  good,  not  make  thyself  a  name, — 

'Tis  fit  that  by  the  good  remaining  yet, 

Thy  name  be  one  men  never  can  forget. 

Oh,  Eyes  I  first  knew  in  our  mutual  youth, 

So  full  of  limpid  earnestness  and  truth  ; 

Eyes  I  saw  fading  still,  as  day  by  day 

The  body,  not  the  spirit's  strength,  gave  way ; 

Eyes  that  I  last  saw  lifting  their  farewell 

To  the  now  darkened  window  where  I  dwell, 

And  wondered,  as  I  stood  there  sadly  gazing, 

If  Death  were  brooding  in  their  faint  upraising  ; 

If  never  more  thy  footstep  light  should  cross 

My  threshold  stone — but  friends  bewail  thy  loss, 

And  She  be  widowed  young,  who  lonely  trains 

Children  that  boast  thy  good  blood  in  their  veins  ; 

Fair  eyes,  your  light  was  quenched  while  men  still  thought 

To  see  those  tasks  to  full  perfection  brought. 

Brave  heart,  true  soldier's  son  ;  set  at  thy  post, 
Deserting  not  till  life  itself  was  lost  ; 

Be  thy  sons  like  thee.     Sadly  as  I  bend 

Above  the  page,  I  write  thy  name,  lost  friend. 

With  a  friend's  name  this  brief  book  did  begin, 

And  a  friend's  name  shall  end  it  :  names  that  win 

Happy  remembrance  from  the  great  and  good  ; 

Names  that  shall  sink  not  in  oblivion's  flood, 

But  with  clear  music,  like  a  church  bell's  chime, 

Sound  through  the  river's  sweep  of  onward-rushing  Time." 

The  following  years  only  brought  new  losses.  The 
tragedy  of  old  age,  it  would  seem,  had  fairly  begun 
for  Mrs.  Norton.  There  was  much,  however,  besides 
the  natural  losses  of  old  friends,  the  natural  diminution 
of  health  and  courage,  to  make  these  last  twenty  years 
of  her  life  an  even  more  melancholy  struggle  than  any 
that  had  gone  before  them. 

In  1855  her  first  grandchild,  Richard  Norton,  had 
been  born  at  Capri;  in  1856  came  a  little  girl,  Carlotta, 
and,  by  a  strange  irony  of  fate  which  had  deprived 
her  of  the  infancy  of  her  own  children,  both  boy  and 
girl  became  at  a  very  early  age  her  especial  possession, 
and  she  had  again  the  care  and  companionship  of 
young  children  at  a  time  when  such  care  and  com- 


276  "LOST  AND   SAVED"  [chap,  xxi 

panionship  is  often  a  greater  anxiety  than  a  pleasure. 
There  is  no  sign,  however,  that  her  grandchildren's 
residence  with  her  was  anything  but  a  joy  to  Mrs. 
Norton.  Till  he  was  old  enough  to  be  sent  to  school, 
her  grandson  Richard  slept  in  her  own  room,  and  both 
children  were  constantly  with  her. 

There  is  a  little  note  written  to  her  old  friend,  Sir 
Alexander  Duff  Gordon,  which  gives  a  characteristic 
glimpse  of  her  at  this  time  : 

"  No,  dear  Sir  Aleck.  It  went  to  Frampton  to  be 
signed ;  I  would  it  were  a  matter  of  indifference  to  me 
to  get  it;  but  grandchildren  now  come  chirping  like 
birds  to  be  fed,  besides  all  former  claims. 

I  hope  Lucie  is  better.  I  am  never  in  town  two  days 
at  a  time,  and  have  never  got  to  Esher. 

"  Yours  most  truly, 
"C.N." 

Early  in  1863  she  brought  out  the  novel,  "  Lost  and 
Saved,"  published  by  Messrs.  Hurst  &  Blackett,  on 
which  she  had  long  been  at  work,  in  which  she  had 
been  so  often  interrupted  since  its  first  conception 
during  one  of  her  brief  periods  of  calm  happiness— a 
summer  spent  at  Wiesbaden  with  her  eldest  son, 
Fletcher,  shortly  after  the  flattering  reception  of  her 
"  Stuart  of  Dunleath." 

Here,  as  usual,  she  had  made  new  friends,  among 
others  the  Earl  of  Essex,  to  whom  we  find  her  dedi- 
cating the  novel  when  it  finally  appeared.  For  it  was 
then  and  there,  as  she  herself  narrates  in  this  same 
dedication,  "  while  my  boy  and  your  girl  rode  laughing 
races  through  woods  of  Wiesbaden,  and  you  and  I  took 
more  cheerful  walks  than  I  can  ever  take  again ;  when 
your  beautiful  and  pleasant  sisters  were  '  new  friends,' 
and  we  all  hoped  to  make  but  one  family,"  that  the  idea 
of  this  novel  was  born. 

By  her  own  announcement,  Beatrice,  the  heroine, 
is  an  attempt  on  her  part — the  result  of  many  jesting 
conversations  between  this  "  new  friend  "  and  herself — 


1863]  BEATRICE  277 

to  make  a  woman's  character  on  the  lines  Lord  Essex 
professed  most  to  admire.  Whether  by  accident,  or 
by  a  still  more  subtle  connection  of  cause  and  effect, 
no  other  heroine  of  Mrs.  Norton's  so  closely  resembles 
herself  as  the  heroine  of  "Lost  and  Saved." 

"  She  was  quick,  ardent,  and  sensitive  ;  capable  of 
all  sacrifice  for  those  she  loved ;  capable  of  all  energy 
for  that  which  she  desired  to  attain  ;  full  of  eagerness ; 
full  of  enthusiasm  ;  pitiful  and  tender.  Something  of 
a  rarer  earnestness  was  in  her  than  in  others,  and 
warmed  you,  while  she  spoke,  like  a  flame.  It  is  in 
vain  to  argue  the  matter;  there  is  as  much  difference 
of  sensation  in  different  persons  as  there  is  difference 
in  their  physical  strength  or  intellectual  capacities. 
One  can't  draw,  another  can't  sing,  and  a  third  can't 
feel.  There  are  apathetic  creatures,  to  whom  passionate 
love,  wild  grief,  aching  compassion,  are  mysteries  as 
great  as  magic.  Disturbed,  embarrassed,  incredulous, 
with  a  strong  repugnance  to  what  they  call  a  scene, 
they  shrink  like  sea-anemones,  and  draw  in  the  cold 
flabby  feelers  of  their  minds  at  any  evidence  of  emotion 
in  others. 

"  Beatrice  was  the  reverse  of  all  this.  She  enjoyed 
more,  she  suffered  more,  she  felt  more  than  a  great 
proportion  of  her  fellow-creatures.  Life  thrilled 
through  her,  as  you  may  see  it  thrill,  in  the  delight 
of  sunshine,  through  a  butterfly's  closed  wings.  And 
to  such  as  she,  in  whom  the  visible  world  and  the  life 
of  sensation  predominate,  the  temptations  of  this  world 
are  the  most  powerful.  Her  heart  ached,  the  tears 
rushed  to  her  eyes  at  some  touching  picture  or  some 
mournful  song.  The  breath  of  a  warm  spring  day, 
the  scent  of  flowers,  the  purple  of  the  distant  hills, 
the  freshness  of  the  waves  dashing  in  upon  the  shore, 
filled  her  with  vague  yearning. 

"  Such  natures  will  not  await  the  coming  event ; 
they  cannot  watch  the  subtle  alchemy  of  brooding 
days,  even  though  the  chance  of  a  golden  hour  lie 
there.  They  are  for  ever  wrestling  before  dawn  with 
the  dark  angel  of  Destiny,  reckless  if  their  victory 
shall  send  them  lamed  and  limping  from  Peniel." 

The  avowed  intention  of  the  book  was  to  show  how 


278  "LOST  AND   SAVED"  [chap,  xxi 

sure  such  a  creature  was  of  coming  to  grief  in  the 
world  Mrs.  Norton  herself  knew  best,  the  world  of 
London  society, 

"  Where  women  with  shallow  feelings,  who  tread 
the  paths  of  sin  sure-footed  as  Spanish  mules  on  the 
edge  of  the  Cordilleras,  are  indescribably  welcome  ; 
and  where  stupid,  honest  Beatrices,  with  their  pas- 
sionate affection  and  blind  confidences  in  the  base,  and 
romantic  notions  of  love  and  justice  and  universal 
sympathy  are  utterly  abhorred." 

It  is  the  story  of  a  beautiful  young  girl,  gradually 
entangled  by  a  series  of  very  plausible  accidents,  one 
of  which  is  a  mock  marriage,  into  what  is  commonly 
known  as  a  life  of  sin,  as  the  mistress  of  a  young  man 
of  high  rank  and  the  mother  of  his  illegitimate  child. 
Rather  a  hazardous  situation,  we  must  confess,  and 
one  needing  careful  treatment  if  it  was  to  be  accept- 
able by  the  standards  laid  down  for  English  fiction 
during  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria !  We  are  not 
surprised,  therefore,  to  find  the  book  severely  criticised 
as  not  fit  to  lie  upon  a  lady's  table.  And,  indeed,  we 
are  forced  to  admit  that  such  criticism  was  not  without 
a  certain  kind  of  justification.  It  was  not  so  much 
that  the  heroine  was  neither  wife  nor  maid  through 
the  greater  part  of  the  story.  Treated  with  a  proper 
discretion,  the  young  mother  whose  hand  shows  no 
marriage-ring  is  not  an  unheard-of  appearance  in  the 
pages  of  Victorian  fiction.  The  trouble  was  that  under 
Mrs.  Norton's  treatment  the  whole  threadbare  situation 
became  alive,  convincing,  a  thing  of  her  own  day,  her 
own  class,  her  own  and  others'  observation  ;  and,  as 
such,  we  can  hardly  wonder  that  it  was  judged  unfit 
to  be  given  to  the  reader  for  whom  all  English  fiction 
of  that  day  was  especially  prepared  and  adapted — the 
young  unmarried  girl. 

It  was  also  said  of  it  that  the  leading  characters 
were,  if  not  portraits,  at  least  very  intimate  studies  of 


1863]  THE   MARCHIONESS   OF  UPDOWN  279 

Mrs.  Norton's  own  friends  and  acquaintances,  espe- 
cially the  Marchioness  of  Updown,  the  fat,  vulgar, 
great  lady,  who  serves  as  the  principal  victim  of 
Mrs.  Norton's  lively  wit.  And  this  accusation  is,  no 
doubt,  in  some  measure  true,  could  not  fail  to  be  true 
with  a  writer  like  Mrs.  Norton,  in  whom  the  power 
of  creative  imagination  never  approached  the  fineness 
of  her  observation,  and  whose  peculiar  genius  lay  in 
the  force  and  vividness  with  which  she  put  her  own 
impressions  into  words. 

It  is  quite  possible,  therefore,  that  this  same  Mar- 
chioness  of  Updown  was   suggested,  if  not  entirely 

inspired,  by   Lady  ,  one   of  the  clique  at  Court 

who  did  what  they  could  to  prevent  Mrs.  Norton 
from  showing  her  face  there  again  after  the  Melbourne 
scandal. 

She  was  safely  off  the  stage  of  action  at  the  time  of 
the  publication  of  "  Lost  and  Saved."  The  lady  is 
thus  described  in  Mrs.  Norton's  lively  pages  : 

"  Though  her  husband  was  neither  wise  nor  great, 
but  a  fat,  foolish  man,  with  a  meek,  fidgety  temper — 
and  there  are,  as  we  know,  no  less  than  twenty-one 
marquises  in  the  British  Peerage — she  somehow  con- 
trived to  be  the  greatest  lady  that  ever  was  seen  out  of 
a  fairy  tale.  Her  sisters  called  her  '  the  Marchioness,' 
as  the  servants  did.  Her  husband  called  her  '  the 
Marchioness.'  It  seemed  as  if  there  was  no  other 
Marchioness  in  the  world.  If  there  was  a  ball,  party, 
or  soiree  to  be  given,  her  absence  was  as  bitter  as  that 
of  the  hero  of  the  old-fashioned  song,  '  Robin  Adair.' 
If  there  was  a  procession,  coronation,  or  festive  cere- 
mony of  any  kind,  the  world  stood  on  its  axis  till  the 
Marchioness  had  a  place  assigned  to  her.  She  went  to 
Court,  not  spangled  with  scattered  diamonds,  like  the 
sky  on  a  fine  night,  but  crusted  over  with  them,  like 
barnacles  on  a  ship's  hull.  Every  year  her  arms  were 
rounder,  her  bracelets  larger,  her  figure  more  corpulent. 
Every  year  the  sweep  of  her  full  drapery  encroached 
more  and  more  on  the  ground  occupied  by  her  scantier 
neighbours.  Every  year  her  step  became  more  flat- 
footed  and  imperious.     In  England  she  shone  with  the 


28o  "LOST  AND   SAVED"  [chap,  xxi 

splendour  of  a  perpetual  Catherine-wheel ;  and  abroad 
she  represented,  in  the  opinion  of  amazed  foreigners, 
the  style  and  condition  of  an  English  "  Grande  Dame." 

The  book  abounds  with  descriptions  as  amusing  as 
the  one  just  given.  Its  chief  interest  for  us,  however, 
is  in  the  character  of  Beatrice.  Dissimilar  as  was  her 
story  from  Mrs.  Norton's  own,  it  yet  affords  many  and 
many  descriptions  which  could  only  have  originated 
in  Mrs.  Norton's  own  experience. 

We  see  her  with  her  own  first  child  as  she  describes 
Beatrice — 

"  Seated  opposite  to  the  nurse,  who  held  him  on  her 
lap,  practising  one  of  Gordigiani's  perfect  ballads ; 
and  smiling  at  him  while  she  sang,  fancying  that  even 
to  him  the  melody  gave  pleasure." 

We  see  her  struggling  through  one  of  her  long, 
ungracious  interviews  with  lawyers, 

"  Proceeding  with  that  rambling  fluency  which  all 
women,  even  very  intelligent  women,  employ  in 
endeavouring  to  explain  themselves  on  matters  of 
business.  Mr.  Grey  listened  with  increasing  severity 
and  disapprobation.  Her  occasional  tears  did  not 
touch  him  ;  her  appealing  looks,  from  time  to  time, 
when  urging  some  especial  point,  only  irritated  him. 
This  was  neither  the  time  nor  place  for  such  coquetry. 
He  did  not  like  such  eyes." 

We  get  a  glimpse  of  one  of  those  fits  of  stormy 
passion  which  often  compromised  her  own  case  and 
alienated  her  well-wishers  in  her  own  endless  struggles 
against  her  husband's  injustice;  though  here  it  is 
Beatrice  she  describes — 

"Resisting  the  truth  till  resistance  was  no  longer 
possible,  and  then,  when  convinced  that  her  visitor 
really  was  breaking  to  her  some  new  dreadful  phase 
in  her  life,  she  passed  to  the  wildest  frenzy  of  reproach 
to  him  personally,  for  being1,  the  bearer  of  such  ill- 


1863]  "LOST   AND   SAVED"  281 

tidings.  She  positively  stamped  her  foot  as  she  bade 
the  old  soldier  be  gone  and  not  insult  her  farther  by  his 
presence ;  and  finally,  becoming  apparently  conscious 
of  the  ceaseless  cries  of  little  Frank,  who  wailed  as  all 
young  children  do  at  stormy  speaking  among  their 
elders,  she  snatched  the  boy  up  as  passionately  as  she 
had  laid  him  down,  strained  him  hard  to  her  breast, 
and  dropping  back  in  her  chair  burst  into  sobbing 
tears. 

"  Under  that  shower  the  General  beat  a  rapid  retreat, 
incensed  and  alienated ;  thinking  her  wanting  in 
dignity,  modesty,  and  proper  conduct,  and  resolving 
to  communicate  anything  he  had  to  say  to  her  in 
writing. 

"  But  before  the  hot  afternoon  had  waned  away,  a 
little  note  recalled  him ;  it  said  : 

"  '  Forgive  my  violence — I  want  to  ask  you  one 
question,  only  one — and  then  I  will  give  you  no  more 
trouble.     I  am  very  miserable — do  come  back  to  me.' " 

And  there  is  a  charming  little  hint  of  the  author's 
practical  experience  as  a  woman  earning  her  daily 
bread,  and  obliged  to  go  often  unattended  : 

"  It  is  a  dream  of  romancists  that  your  heroine's 
beauty  cannot  be  seen  without  attracting  as  much 
attention  as  a  comet.  If  a  woman  be  modestly  dressed, 
simple  in  manner,  and  obviously  going  about  her  own 
avocations,  she  may  walk — I  do  not  say  through  Paris, 
but  be  it  said  to  the  credit  of  Englishmen,  certainly 
through  any  street  in  London — with  perfect  security. 
Beatrice  Brooke  was  as  beautiful  a  woman  as  could  be 
seen  or  imagined ;  but  she  reached  Stratton  Street 
without  adventure  and  without  remark  beyond  that 
passing  glance  which  Moore  and  Byron  have  both 
commemorated  in  poetry  as  given  to  faces  we  some- 
times meet  '  in  the  world's  crowd,'  and  whose  recurring 
loveliness  comes  back  to  us  whenever  we  dream  of 
beauty." 

I  should  not  have  given  so  many  of  these  extracts  if 
the  book  from  which  they  are  taken  was  more  easily 
attainable.      I  could  have  given   many  more  equally 

36 


282  "LOST   AND   SAVED"  [chap,  xxi 

vivid,  equally  illuminating  both  of  the  habit  of  mind 
and  the  actual  experiences  of  the  woman  who  wrote 
them.  I  have  given  enough,  I  hope,  to  convince  those 
who  are  inclined  to  judge  her  novels  as  old-fashioned 
and  out  of  date,  that  this  one,  at  least,  will  well  repay 
any  reader  who  is  fortunate  enough  to  come  across  it ; 
fortunate  I  say,  for  like  so  much  else  she  has  written, 
it  is  so  nearly  out  of  print  that  it  is  almost  by  chance 
that  one  can  obtain  a  copy  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

LAST  YEARS — DEATH  OF  GEORGE  NORTON — SECOND 
MARRIAGE — DEATH 

Mrs.  Norton's  last  long  novel,  "  Old  Sir  Douglas," 
appeared  in  book  form  early  in  1867,  having  come  out 
first  periodically  in  Macmilla-ris  Magazine,  reprinted 
for  the  American  public  in  LitteWs  Living  Age. 
To  those  of  the  present  generation  who  were  intro- 
duced to  this  story  in  the  bound  volumes  of  either 
of  those  periodicals,  "  Old  Sir  Douglas "  is  a  very 
pleasant  recollection. 

The  book,  however,  does  not  bear  rereading  as 
well  as  her  earlier  stories.  It  is  discursive,  full  of 
inconsistent  and  often  sensational  incident,  gathered 
hurriedly,  it  would  seem,  out  of  the  flotsam  and  jetsam 
of  her  own  long  experience,  and  put  together  in  a  rather 
palpable  effort  to  interest  and  amuse.  But  even  in  "  Old 
Sir  Douglas  "  there  are  many  charming  and  touching 
bits  of  description.  The  account,  for  instance,  of  the 
childhood  of  Sir  Douglas  and  his  brother,  two  little 
motherless  Scottish  boys  brought  up  under  thedominion 
of  a  harsh,  unloving  step-mother,  has  too  much  simi- 
larity with  the  fate  of  her  own  children  not  to  have 
been  written  out  of  the  very  depths  of  her  heart.  The 
description  of  Naples,  too,  and  of  the  poor  wild  lad 
who  came  to  such  grief  there,  has  an  added  interest 
from  Mrs.  Norton's  own  associations  with  Southern 
Italy. 

283 


284  LAST  YEARS  [chap,   xxii 

The  book  was  to  have  been  dedicated  to  Lady 
Dufferin,  Mrs.  Norton's  favourite  sister,  but  before 
it  was  finished  Lady  Dufferin  had  died  of  a  long 
and  painful  illness,  and  the  name  of  her  son,  instead 
of  herself,  appears  on  the  first  page. 

The  death  of  this  favourite  sister  was  an  irreparable 
loss  to  Mrs.  Norton,  though  when  Motley  saw  her  a 
little  later  in  the  same  year  he  found  her  upon  the 
whole  "  in  pretty  good  spirits  and  particularly 
agreeable." 

Mr.  Motley's  intimacy  with  the  whole  Sheridan 
connection  had  been  confirmed  and  strengthened  by 
the  marriage  of  his  second  daughter,  Mary,  with  a 
son  of  Mr.  Brinsley  Sheridan,  and  it  was  during  one 
of  his  frequent  visits  to  Frampton  Court  that  he  speaks 
thus  of  his  old  friend  : 

"  She  continues  to  take  it  for  granted  that  I  am 
going  to  stay  here  as  long  as  she  does,  and  that  I 
am  to  make  a  long  visit  at  Keir,  where  she  goes  next 
month.  I  have  undeceived  her,  but  she  continues  to 
know  best.  Carlotta  is  here,  and  she  trots  about 
quietly  and  gently,  and  seems  very  obedient  and 
well-disposed." 

These  long  autumn  visits  to  Keir,  where  in  later 
years  Mrs.  Norton  was  often  accompanied  by  her 
grandchildren,  had  suffered  no  interruption  by  Mr. 
Stirling's  marriage  in  1865  with  his  distant  cousin, 
Anna,  third  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Leven.  In  the 
same  year  Mr.  Stirling  had  also  succeeded  to  the 
title  and  estates  of  his  mother's  brother,  Sir  John 
Maxwell,  and  he  is  hereafter  to  be  known  in  these 
pages  as  Sir  William  Stirling-Maxwell. 

Motley  speaks  pleasantly  of  Lady  Anna  Stirling 
Maxwell : 

"  I  like  Stirling's  wife  very  much.  She  is  decidedly 
handsome,  with  delicate,  regular  features,  fair  hair,  and 
high-bred,  gentle  manners." 


1 868]  LETTER   TO   HAYWARD  285 

He  goes  on  in  the  same  letter  to  describe  a  dinner 
at  the  Stirling-Maxwells',  where  he  met  Mrs.  Norton 
and  Anthony  Trollope,  among  a  number  of  greater  and 
less  celebrities. 

But  from  the  time  of  Lady  Dufferin's  death  till  her 
own,  the  mention  of  ill-health  and  bad  spirits  becomes 
more  and  more  frequent  in  her  own  letters.  The 
following  to  Hayward  is  noticeable  in  this  respect. 

"  Frampton  Court,  January  1868. 

11  Dear  Avocat, 

"  I  get  dreary  in  London,  so  fled  back  here 
where  I  am  coated  and  packed  in  cotton.  I  have  a 
constant  pain  in  my  side,  and  consider  that  I  shall 
shortly  be  a  Saint  and  a  Martyr  with  a  halo  round 
my  departed  head  ! 

"  Your  Duncombe  article  is  most  clear,  spirited,  and 
true,  and  I  ran  my  eyes  to  the  end  with  great 
eagerness. 

"  The  family  say  they  never  knew  he  had  either  wife 
or  son !  or  who  the  man  is  who  has  published  the 
Memoir ! 

"  I  assure  you  it  was  not  Lord  Alvanley,  but  my 
brother  Charlie,  who  made  the  jest  (or  jeu  de  mots) 
you  quote,  though  immediately  after,  we  heard  it 
attributed  (as  all  witty  things  were)  to  Lord  Alvanley, 
and  I  said  then,  '  How  sure  they  were  to  give  that  to 
a  noted  wit,  instead  of  you,  Charlie.' 

"  Some  man  (I  can't  recollect  who)  said  with  a 
stupid  sneer,  '  I'd  be  afraid  even  to  leave  my  card 
on  him,  for  fear  he'd  mark  it.' 

"  '  That  would  at  least  depend  on  whether  he  thought 
it  a  high  honour,'  Charlie  said  very  quietly. 

II  But  it  was  said  rather  in  reproof  of  the  fling  at  a 
man  who  was  down,  as  Lord  R then  was. 

"  I  have  got  '  More  about  Junius'  with  me,  and  am 
entirely  absorbed  in  considering  the  great  mystery. 

II I  shall  be  in  town  in  February.  Much  remembrance 
from  all  here. 

"Yours  ever  truly, 

"  C.  Client." 

The  Thomas  Duncombe  mentioned  in  this  letter 
is   the    same    whose    appointment    as    one    of    Lord 


286  LAST  YEARS  [chap,  xxh 

Durham's  suite  on  his  unfortunate  Canadian  embassy 
brought  such  criticism  upon  his  chief  because  of  his 
own  rather  dubious  reputation,  both  socially  and 
politically,  at  the  time.  Mrs.  Norton's  knowledge  of 
him  had  begun  years  before,  when  he  came  under  her 
spell  as  a  good-looking  young  captain,  dandy,  and 
duellist,  during  the  great  struggle  of  the  Whig  ladies 
to  attract  young  men  from  the  Tory  party  to  the 
ranks  of  Whiggism  and  Reform. 

She  had  become  very  large  and  heavy,  and  as  she 
grew  older  had  several  serious  falls,  one  of  which,  in 
the  summer  of  1869,  was  accompanied  by  a  blow  on 
the  head,  so  severe  as  to  delay  the  article  she  was  at 
work  on  just  then  for  Macmillan. 

The  article  in  question  she  herself  had  proposed  to 
write  on  the  life  and  works  of  her  dear  friend  Lady 
Duff  Gordon,  dead  that  same  summer  from  con- 
sumption, in  Cairo,  far  away  from  friends  and  country. 
The  article  appeared  at  last  in  September,  full  of 
affectionate  appreciation  of  the  writer  and  real  regret 
for  the  woman  whose  nature  in  many  things  was 
not  unlike  her  own. 

A  personal  letter  to  Lord  Ronald  Gower,  a  devoted 
younger  son  of  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  tells  of 
Mrs.  Norton's  grief  for  the  death  of  a  still  closer  and 
dearer  friend : 


11  If  to  have  loved  and  admired  your  dear  mother 
more  than  any  one  I  ever  met  out  of  my  own  home 
circle,  more  than  any  one  I  ever  knew  except  my  sister 
Helen,  could  give  me  a  place  in  her  children's  remem- 
brances, I  can  lay  claim  to  such  a  recollection,  even  at 
this  mournful  and  sacred  time.  However  often  one 
may  have  known  a  dear  and  familiar  friend,  I  think 
there  is  always  one  occasion  in  which  the  face  and 
form  become,  as  it  were,  more  visible  to  memory,  as  if 
the  picture  were  taken  then.  I  see  for  ever,  in  thinking 
of  her,  the  sweet  picture  of  her  pitying  face  smilingly 
looking  down  on  my  boy,  who  was  trying  to  thank  her 
for  all  her  goodness  to  me,  and  as  she  stood  drawing 


1869]  LETTER   TO   HAYVVARD  287 

off  a  ring  from  her  finger,  which  she  gave  to  him,  the 
very  ideal  of  lovely  kindness  of  soul. 

"  I  think  of  you  all.  I  think  especially  of  the  dear 
Duchess  of  Argyll.  I  knew  her  best.  I  know  what 
this  blank  in  life  must  be,  though  surely  no  children 
of  any  mother  that  ever  lived  and  died  among  them 
could  feel  more  blessed  assurance  that  home  on  earth 
was  exchanged  for  home  •  eternal  in  the  heavens.'  " 

Lady  Palmerston's  death  was  the  end  of  another 
friendship,  not  so  close  indeed  as  Mrs.  Norton's  rela- 
tion to  the  Duchess  of  Sutherland  or  Lady  Duff 
Gordon,  but  very  kind,  very  constant,  and  of  long 
duration,  reaching  back  as  it  did  to  a  past  before 
Lady  Palmerston's  second  marriage,  when  she  was 
still  Lady  Cowper,  and  her  favourite  brother  was  still 
William  Lamb,  with  all  his  high  office  still  to  come 
to  him. 

A  very  charming  notice  of  Lady  Palmerston's  life 
and  character  appeared  in  The  Times  a  short  time 
after  her  death,  written  by  Abraham  Hayvvard,  who 
straightway  sent  the  paper  to  his  old  friend  and  hers, 
Mrs.  Norton,  who  was  just  then  in  Switzerland  staying 
with  the  sister  of  her  late  brother-in-law,  Lord  Gifford. 
The  following  is  Mrs.  Norton's  reply : 

"Villa  Lammermoor,  Geneva, 

"Friday,  September  24,  1869. 

"  Dear  Avocat, 

"  Thanks  for  your  good  remembrance  of  me,  in 
sending  the  article  on  Lady  Palmerston.  It  has,  I 
think,  been  delayed  in  delivery,  as  I  only  received  it 
yesterday,  and  lucky  to  get  it  then,  for  I  am  just 
leaving  this  sweet  place  and  expect,  after  one  day's 
rest  in  Paris,  to  get  home  the  middle  of  this  week. 

"  You  must  not  think  I  have  not  already  guessed 
you  as  the  author  of  the  article  in  question,  which  I 
had ,  read  with  eager  interest. 

"  I  think  it  much  the  best  that  has  appeared  ;  much 
the  best  thing  of  the  kind  that  even  you  ever  wrote— 
perfect  in  taste,  feeling,  and  style.  It  is  the  most 
difficult  of  all  tasks,  that  sort  of  posthumous  notice ; 


288  LAST  YEARS  [chap,  xxii 

and  the  steering  between  a  real  profound  regret  and 
admiration,  and  the  consciousness  that  you  are  to 
explain  grounds  of  regret  and  admiration,  and  call  on 
strangers  to  share  both  feelings,  requires  rare  tact  of 
measurement,  what  to  say  and  what  to  leave  unsaid. 
That  tact  you  certainly  have  shown,  nor  is  there  any 
over-praise  in  anything  you  have  written. 

"  The  trembling  antennae  with  which  those  who  are 
near  and  dear  must  always  approach  and  examine  the 
lives  of  their  dead,  cannot  be  hurt  by  your  lines ;  nor 
can  strangers,  in  their  carelessness,  think  them  too 
personal  in  any  comment  on  her  own  many  merits. 
I  have  never  heard  particulars,  wandering  about  as  we 
have  been  ;  but  you  will  tell  me,  if  I  miss  seeing  Lady 
H.  Cowper  in  Paris,  which  of  her  children  were  with- 
her,  etc. 

"  This  place  is  delicious,  and  Lady  Emily  charming, 
reminding  me  much,  in  a  certain  earnestness  and  sim- 
plicity, of  Gifford,  her  brother,  and  full  of  information 
and  ability  of  various  kinds.  Very  musical  also,  which 
is  a  joy  to  me  at  all  times :  one  of  the  few  pleasures 
neither  age  nor  sadness  can  make  one  indifferent  to. 

"  Baroness  Adolf  de  Rothschild  has  a  much  finer 
house,  but,  in  my  opinion,  not  nearly  so  pretty  a  place, 
close  by.  She  is  an  old  Naples  friend  of  mine,  and  I 
always  thought  her  charming. 

"  I  make  my  farewell  by  dining  with  her  to-morrow, 
when  I  shall  look  my  last  on  the  blue  lake,  and  turn 
into  the  dreadful  railway  tunnels. 

"  If  you  write,  write  to  Chesterfield  Street,  '  not  to 
be  forwarded.'     I  think  Wednesday  will  see  me  there. 

"  I  heard  of  you  from  Stirling-Maxwell. 

"  Yours  ever  truly, 

"C.  Client." 

She  went  back,  as  usual,  to  a  winter  of  hard  work, 
the  most  dreary  kind  of  literary  hard  work — hack 
work  for  the  magazines.  One  of  her  friends  speaking 
of  her  after  her  death  says : 


"  In  her  later  days  she  had  survived  her  zest  for 
popularity,  and  sometimes  seemed  almost  as  if  she 
had  learned  to  enjoy,  or  at  all  events  to  provoke,  its 
opposite,  preferring  to  write  anonymously,  and  taking 


1871]  "JUANITA"  289 

as  much  pains  with  a  criticism  of  a  picture  or  a  review 
of  a  new  book  as  if  her  name  had  been  prefixed  at 
the  beginning,  or  her  well-known  initials  had  been 
appended  at  the  close." 

But  such  a  statement  about  her  could  never  have 
been  more  than  partly  true.  Her  desire  for  popular 
applause,  indeed,  she  may  have  outgrown  somewhat 
before  she  died,  but  she  never  outgrew  her  sensitive- 
ness to  adverse  criticism  ;  indeed,  in  her  old  age,  all 
fault-finding  became  well-nigh  intolerable  to  her,  and 
too  often  in  her  later  years  she  let  herself  go  in  im- 
patient self-justification,  not  only  in  private,  but  in 
public  replies  to  the  reviews  of  her  last  novels  ;  to 
defend  her  "  Lost  and  Saved  "  from  the  imputation  of 
immorality;  and  again  when  she  was  rather  sharply 
used  about  "  Old  Sir  Douglas." 

Another  thing  that  always  exasperated  her  was  the 
appropriation  of  earlier  writings  of  her  own,  especially 
her  songs  and  melodies,  without  proper  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  source  from  which  they  were  derived; 
and  she  was  at  last  betrayed  into  a  long,  acrimonious 
discussion  on  this  subject  in  The  Times — interesting 
chiefly  when  she  tells  how  she  came  to  write  "  Juanita," 
the  most'; popular  of  her  songs  ;  familiar  still  to  every 
College  Glee  Club  throughout  the  United  States,  in 
places  and  among  people  to  whom  its  history  and 
author  will  always  be  utterly  unknown. 

"  Twenty  years  ago,"  she  says  in  October  1871,  "  I 
composed  a  song,  '  Juanita,'  for  one  of  my  sons  to  sing 
to  the  guitar.  It  had  a  great  vogue.  It  was  not  only 
extremely  popular  as  a  vocal  piece,  but  was  set  by 
several  instrumental  composers  as  taken  from  the 
song  published  by  me." 

She  goes  on  with  some  warmth  to  explain  how  the 
musician,  Charles  d'Albret,  had  lately  included  this 
same  song  in  one  of  his  own  compositions  without 
one  word  to  tell  to  whom  it  really  belonged. 

37 


29°  LAST  YEARS  [chap,  xxii 

The  whole  letter  shows  a  great  deal  of  unnecessary 
irritation  over  this  very  widespread  grievance  of 
both  writers  and  composers,  besides  containing  some 
unlucky  statements  which  she  afterwards  found 
herself  in  some  straits  to  support.  Indeed,  we  must 
reluctantly  confess  that  in  the  end  Mrs.  Norton  came 
off  rather  badly,  Mrs.  Henry  Wood,  whom  she  had 
rashly  accused  of  taking  the  idea  of  "  East  Lynne  " 
from  a  sketch  she  herself  had  long  before  contri- 
buted to  the  English  Annual,  remaining  undisputably 
mistress  of  the  field. 

Her  arrangements  with  her  publishers  were  often 
unsatisfactory,  full  of  misunderstandings  and  confusion 
for  all  concerned  in  them  ;  for  she  was  not  a  person 
to  whom  such  business  matters  came  easily.  She  was 
always  being  cheated  and  overreached,  and  often 
thought  herself  cheated  when  it  was  she  herself  who 
was  mistaken. 

Her  first  unfriendly  encounter  with  one  of  this 
much-abused  class  of  persons  is  worth  preserving 
because  of  its  quaint  conclusion.  It  happened  as  long 
ago  as  the  spring  of  her  brother's  elopement,  when 
her  troubles  with  the  proprietor  of  her  Court  magazine, 
Bull,  of  Holies  Street,  reached  such  a  point  that  she 
was  called  before  the  Vice-Chancellor  to  testify  against 
him. 

The  Vice-Chancellor,  however,  received  her  with 
scant  courtesy,  announcing  that  no  one  who  made  a 
business  of  writing  fiction  was  competent  to  tell  the 
truth  about  any  question  of  mere  fact. 

The  Vice-Chancellor's  opinion  excited  at  the  time 
a  good  deal  of  amusement  among  her  acquaintances, 
and  was  no  doubt  sufficiently  exasperating  to  her; 
for  in  this  matter,  at  least,  she  seems  to  have  had  the 
right  on  her  side.  But  there  was,  perhaps,  a  residuum 
of  truth  in  his  conclusion.  She  must  always  have 
been  too  eager,  too  interested,  of  too  constructive  as 
well  as  retentive  a  memory  either  to  receive  or  to 
retain   impressions   untinctured    by   her   own    strong 


1872]  CHARACTERISTICS  291 

individuality.  Indeed,  she  never  outgrew  a  certain 
heedlessness  and  picturesqueness  of  statement  which 
made  her  always  a  very  easy  person  to  put  in  the 
wrong,  as  well  as  a  very  difficult  one  to  deal  with  in 
matters  of  business. 

To  the  end  of  her  life  she  was  subject  to  bursts  of 
stormy  temper,  on  what  seemed  to  the  onlooker  some- 
times very  inadequate  cause.  But  there  was  nothing 
mean  or  unworthy  about  these  sudden  outbursts.  It 
was  as  if  she  was  made  on  a  somewhat  larger  plan 
from  the  rest  of  the  world,  as  if  unconsciously  she 
moved  with  a  somewhat  wider  step  than  her  com- 
panions, till  at  last  the  growing  difference  between 
them  had  to  be  readjusted  violently,  often  painfully, 
before  they  could  walk  together  in  peace  again.  And 
sometimes  they  never  walked  again  together.  But 
she  never  lost  her  facility  for  making  new  friends, 
and  most  of  her  old  ones  she  kept  on  and  on,  through 
all  the  calms  and  storms  of  their  relations,  to  the 
extreme  end  of  her  life. 

I  quote  now  from  a  notice  which  appeared  in  the 
Athenceum  after  her  death,  written  probably  by  one 
of  the  oldest  of  these  old  friends,  Hay  ward  : 

"One  fine  quality  she  evinced  in  all  her  ways  of 
thinking  and  acting  and  writing,  an  unaffected  disdain 
of  affectation.  Nothing  could  be  simpler  or  more 
direct,  nothing  more  tender  and  noble  than  her 
ordinary  conversation;  but  the  iron  had  entered  her 
soul,  and  every  now  and  then  there  was  a  spice  of 
mockery  or  scorn  bitter  as  wormwood." 

Her  last  published  letter  to  Hayward  belongs  to  the 
end  of  1872  : 

"Frampton  Court,  Dorchester, 
"  December  28,  1872. 

"Illustrious  Avocat, 

"  I  will  not  delay  answering  about  the  quotation, 
though  this  is  Saturday,  and  you  will  not  have  letters 
on  Sunday ! 


292  LAST  YEARS  [chap,  xxii 

"  There  is  no  copy  of  Walter  Scott's  poetry  in  this 
well-furnished  house !  But  the  passage  you  quote  is 
in  '  The  Bridal  of  Triermain,'  in  the  description  of  the 
Joust  or  Tournament,  where — 

" '  Lanval,  with  the  fairy  lance 
And  Dinadam  with  lively  glance, 
And  Launcelot,  who  looked  askance 
Evermore  on  the  Queen  ' — 

distinguished  themselves.  I  think  the  lines  you  want 
run  thus  : 

"'And  still  these  lovers'  fame  survives 
For  truth  so  constant  shown  ; 
There  were  two  who  loved  their  neighbours'  wives, 
And  one  who  loved  his  own,' — 

the  one  being  Lord  Caradoc,  or  Craddock.  You  will 
easily  find  the  passage,  in  that  brief,  lovely,  and  under- 
valued poem,  which  describes  how — 

" '  All  too  well  sad  Guendolen 
Hath  taught  the  faithlessness  of  men 
That  child  of  hers  should  pity,  when 
Their  meed  they  undergo.' 

Not  that  I  have  found  men  inconstant — but  very  much 
the  reverse — perhaps  kings  and  princes  are  an  ex- 
ception. While  you  are  looking  out  the  quotation, 
observe  the  lovely  description  of  the  girls  who  disarm 
Arthur  and  play  with  his  armour.  How  pretty  is  the 
trying-on  by  one  girl  on  her  glossy  little  head  of  the 
helmet  of  that  large  warrior  ! 

" '  Then  screamed  'twixt  laughter  and  surprise 
To  feel  its  depth  o'erwhelm  her  eyes.' 

"It  was  read  to  me,  first,  in  the  unforgotten  days 
which  idiots  and  sensualists  think  could  only  be  filled 
with  commonplace  flatteries  and  fooleries — but  which 
held,  for  me,  the  best  intellectual  tutorship  any  young 
eager  mind  ever  received. 

"  Like  the  old  Brighton  landlady  who  said, '  You  live 
in  the  house,  you  know ;  but  everything  else  is  an 
extra ; '  I  have  always  set  the  other  sort  of  love  down 
as  '  an  extra.'  An  extra,  too,  which  may  be  bought 
too  dear,  as  all  extras  are. 

11  Thanks  for  the  little  brochure  of  Lord  Lansdowne. 
I  read  it  over  again  the  other  day  at  Keir.     It  is  far 


1872-3]  LETTER   TO   HAYWARD  293 

the  best  notice  that  appeared,  and  page  7  the  truest 
estimate  of  him  and  his  value — so  also  at  page  21.  '  He 
listened  as  well  as  he  talked '  is  perfect. 

"  I  remember  when  first  reading  the  notice,  thinking 
the  quotation  at  page  28  (from  me)  might  mislead 
people  ;  for,  after  all,  my '  wild  appeals '  were  not  for 
help  in  any  way,  but  justice  about  my  children  and 
reputation. 

"  He  once  asked  me  to  let  him  buy  the  manuscript  of  a 
novel,  and  I  refused,  saying  it  was  meant  for  assistance. 

"  Not  that  I  should  have  been  ashamed  of  his  help ; 
I  would  have  been  very  glad  if  he  had  remembered 
me  as  he  did  Blank. 

"  I  wonder  it  is  not  more  done  in  this  world  of 
struggles. 

"  How  curious  was  that  incident  the  other  day,  of  the 
fortune  of  Mrs.  Brown  going  to  the  Queen  for  lack  of 
heirs !  And  the  poor  old  lady  lived — I  hear— in  con- 
stant dread  of  being  robbed,  and  of  being  known  to  be 
rich !  My  grandson,  Richard,  is  getting  on  well  in 
languages.  He  is  hard  at  work  on  German,  and  I  will 
give  him  your  translation  of  '  Faust '  to  help  him. 

"  We  all  stay  in  the  country  till  his  holidays  are 
ended,  and  then  I  shall  be  in  Chesterfield  Street  for  a 
little  while.  I  have  been  poorly  almost  the  whole  year 
past ! 

"  Motley  broke  a  blood-vessel  some  weeks  since, 
but  recovered ;  and  is  gone  to  Poltimore  to  welcome 
in  the  new  year,  1873.  Wishing  you  health  and 
prosperity  for  that  unseen  interval  of  time,  whose 
advent  is  ushered  in  for  me  by  the  Keir  boys  anxiously 
working  me  a  kettle-holder, 

"  Believe  me, 

"  Yours  ever  truly, 

"  C.  Client. 

"  Excuse  scrawliness,  I  am  so  hurried.  I  feared  to 
miss  the  post  to-morrow,  so  wrote  at  once  about  the 
verses." 

Lord  Lansdowne  had  died  in  1863.  Lady  Stirling- 
Maxwell  died  in  1874,  just  as  Mrs.  Norton  and  her 
grandchildren  were  going  to  make  their  usual  autumn 
visit  at  Keir. 


294  LAST   YEARS  [chap,  xxii 

But  George  Norton  lived  on,  though  after  that 
forced  companionship  at  the  time  of  Fletcher's  death 
his  wife  never  saw  him,  and  seldom  spoke  of  him 
without  the  utmost  bitterness  and  contempt.  But 
nothing  she.  felt  towards  him  ever  influenced  her  to 
an  unkind  action,  even  when  she  had  it  in  her  power 
to  make  him  feel  some  small  measure  of  the  tyranny 
he  had  once  inflicted  on  her.  Whenever  he  was  in 
town  and  wished  to  see  his  grandchildren  while  they 
were  still  under  her  direction,  she  was  always  ready 
to  give  him  opportunity,  sending  them  to  him  at  his 
house  in  Wilton  Place  on  Sunday  mornings,  when  he 
would  take  them  with  him  to  church,  or  sometimes 
to  walk. 

He  grew  very  bent  and  infirm  in  these  later  years, 
older-looking  than  his  elder  brother,  though  he  kept 
his  clear,  ruddy  colouring  to  the  end.  Some  years 
before  his  death  he  gave  up  his  police  magistracy  and 
retired  on  a  pension,  spending  much  of  his  time  here- 
after in  the  country,  either  on  his  estate  in  Yorkshire 
or  with  the  Grantleys  at  Wonersh  Park. 

One  finds  so  little  good  of  him  that  it  is  pleasant  to 
insert  here  the  opinion  of  one  of  his  fellow-magistrates, 
Mr.  Ellison,  who  had  been  long  associated  with  him 
on  the  Bench.  This  gentleman  is  quoted  as  warmly 
praising  Mr.  Norton's  care  and  patience  in  the  dis- 
charge of  his  duty,  and  the  ability  he  had  displayed 
as  magistrate  in  meeting  the  difficulties  of  each  case 
referred  to  him  for  decision  with  good  temper  and  a 
desire  to  do  justice  in  every  sense,  especially  mention- 
ing his  anxiety  for  and  sympathy  with  the  poor. 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  believe  that  this  interest 
and  sympathy  for  the  poor,  mentioned  more  than 
once  as  characteristic  of  Mr.  Norton,  was  the  one 
little  silver  thread  caught  in  the  web  of  this  un- 
lovely character  during  those  years  of  closest  com- 
panionship with  the  generous,  warm-hearted  woman 
who  had  once,  to  use  his  own  words,  had  all  power 
over  him. 


1875]  ILLNESS  295 

He  died  at  last  at  his  brother's  house,  Wonersh 
Park,  on  March  20,  1875. 

His  body  was  taken  to  Yorkshire  to  be  buried, 
beside  his  two  sons.  Lord  Grantley  himself  followed 
his  brother  a  little  later  in  the  same  year,  and  was 
buried  in  the  family  vault  at  Wonersh.  Not  so  his 
wife.  Lady  Grantley  survived  her  husband  long 
enough  to  announce  her  intention  of  resting  anywhere 
after  death  except  by  his  side.  She  had  lived  with 
the  Nortons  all  her  life,  she  is  reported  as  saying,  and 
that  was  enough.  Nothing  on  earth  could  persuade 
her  to  be  buried  with  them. 

Mrs.  Norton  was  in  Italy  with  her  son  and  grand- 
daughter when  she  heard  of  her  husband's  death. 
She  was  human  enough  to  express  a  very  natural 
irritation  that,  having  lived  so  long,  he  had  not  lived 
a  little  longer  and  made  her  Lady  Grantley  before 
he  died. 

His  death  was,  none  the  less,  a  great  shock  to  her. 
She  came  back  instantly  to  England,  and  soon  after- 
wards fell  very  ill,  and  for  more  than  a  year  and  a 
half  was  almost  invalided  in  her  room  in  Chesterfield 
Street. 

But  she  kept  her  looks  to  the  end,  though  people 
only  meeting  her  at  this  later  time  were  less  im- 
pressed with  her  eyes  than  with  her  lovely  mouth 
and  the  beauty  of  her  teeth  and  voice. 

"  Yes,  I  shall  be  handsome,  even  when  I  am  in  my 
coffin,"  she  said  to  some  one  who  was  admiring  her 
in  these  later  days.  Yet  she  laughed  at  an  artist 
whose  sketch  made  her  unduly  youthful-looking,  and 
called  his  pictures  "  Roses  of  Jericho."  A  rose  of 
Jericho  is  a  small  shrub,  the  stiff  branches  of  which, 
when  withered,  curl  into  an  irregular  circle,  resembling 
a  rose  clumsily  carved  in  wood ;  but  which,  when  put 
in  water,  expands  and  softens  into  life  again.  The 
poem  "The  Rose  of  Jericho,"  which  is  sometimes 
included  among  Mrs.  Norton's  own  writings,  is  really 
not  by  her  at  all,  but  is  a  translation  of  a  German  fable 


296  SECOND   MARRIAGE  [chap,  xxii 

made  long  before  by  her  mother,  Mrs.  Sheridan,  and 
published  at  last  by  the  daughter  in  1872. 

Perhaps  the  most  satisfactory  of  her  many  like- 
nesses is  the  marble  bust  now  at  Frampton  Court, 
done  by  her  brother-in-law,  Lord  Gifford,  while  she 
was  still  at  the  height  of  her  beauty.  The  terra-cotta 
bust  by  Williamson,  now  in  the  possession  of  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery,  is  interesting  because  it  was 
completed  after  very  few  sittings — the  last  summer  of 
her  life — during  the  short  period  of  her  marriage  with 
her  old  friend,  Sir  William  Stirling-Maxwell,  whose 
companion  bust,  made  at  the  same  time  by  the  same 
sculptor,  is  also  the  property  of  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery. 

She  was  married  in  her  own  little  drawing-room  in 
Chesterfield  Street,  in  the  spring  of  1877.  Her  grand- 
daughter speaks  of  the  brief  period  that  followed  as 
a  time  of  great  peace  and  happiness  for  them  all. 
The  long  struggle  of  her  life  was  at  last  ended.  The 
devoted  friend  of  so  many  years  was  her  husband, 
with  the  right,  as  well  as  the  power  and  will,  to  pro- 
tect her  against  all  further  buffets  of  fortune.  Her 
health,  too,  was  better  than  it  had  been  for  years. 
Three  months  after  her  marriage,  however,  on  the 
eve  of  her  departure,  with  her  husband  and  grand- 
daughter, to  Keir,  where  they  were  all  going  to  spend 
the  rest  of  the  summer,  she  was  taken  suddenly  ill, 
and  died,  after  a  few  days  of  acute  suffering,  on 
June  15,  1877.  Her  body  was  removed  to  Scotland, 
and  buried  in  the  family  vault  at  Keir,  her  husband 
and  her  two  grandchildren  being  the  chief  mourners — 
for  Brinsley,  Lord  Grantley,  was  too  ill  to  leave  Italy 
even  to  attend  his  mother's  funeral.  His  death,  in 
fact,  followed  hers  within  a  very  few  days.  Nor  did 
her  husband,  Sir  William  Stirling-Maxwell,  survive 
her  many  months. 

He  died  of  fever  at  Venice,  on  his  way  home  from 
Capri,  where  he  had  gone  to  conduct  his  step-daughter 
to   her  widowed   mother.     If  he   had   lived,  perhaps 


MRS.    NORTON. 


p.  296] 


1877J        HER  CLAIM  TO   BE   REMEMBERED  297 

some  effort  would  have  been  made  to  give  Mrs. 
Norton's  literary  remains  at  least  the  permanence  of 
a  uniform  edition.  As  it  is,  as  I  have  already  said, 
most  of  her  writings,  both  prose  and  poetry,  are 
nearly  out  of  print.  And  for  more  than  a  genera- 
tion the  history  of  her  life  has  been  left  in  the  hands 
of  persons  who  only  cared  to  use  its  events  so  far  as 
these  supply  material  for  that  quasi-historical,  wholly 
gossiping  kind  of  reading-matter  which  is  always 
fairly  popular  with  a  large  class  of  readers. 

The  best  proof  I  can  bring  that  all  these  earlier 
biographies  are  either  misleading  or  inadequate,  or 
both,  lies  in  the  foregoing  pages,  in  which  I  have 
made  no  attempt  to  disguise  Mrs.  Norton's  faults  or 
magnify  her  virtues,  or  to  defend  her  beyond  the  point 
when  defence  becomes  special  pleading. 

Nevertheless,  I  believe  that  no  one  can  read  these 
pages  about  her  without  being  convinced  that  she  has 
a  defence  which  ought  to  protect  her  henceforth  from 
the  assaults  of  literary  scandal-mongers,  and  that  she 
has  a  claim  for  more  serious  consideration,  both  as 
a  woman  and  as  a  writer,  than  has  ever  yet  been 
accorded  her. 

My  excuse  for  taking  up  this  defence  and  trying  to 
advance  this  claim  is  the  peculiar  interest  which  I 
have  always  felt  for  everything  even  remotely  con- 
nected with  her  history,  an  interest  which  must  in 
the  course  of  time  have  resulted  in  a  somewhat  fuller 
knowledge  than  is  general  even  among  her  closest 
admirers,  whose  number  indeed,  even  now,  I  believe 
to  be  not  inconsiderable,  and  sure  to  increase  as  the 
real  woman,  the  true  measure  of  her  nobly  gifted 
though  imperfect  character,  becomes  more  widely  and 
more  fairly  known. 


3S 


LIST  OF  MRS.   NORTON'S  WRITINGS 

The  Sorrows  of  Rosalie  and  Other  Poems  (John  Ebers  &  Co.  1829). 
The  Undying  One  and  Other  Poems  (H.  Colburn  &  R.  Bentley.  1830). 
Poems  and  Sketches  in  The  Court  Magazine  and  The  Bells  Assemblie 

for  1832-34  (J.  Bull,  of  Holies  Street). 
Poems  in  the  English  Annual  for  1834-35. 
The  Wife,  and  Woman's  Reward.     Two   prose   tales  (Saunders   & 

Otley.    1835). 
Poems  appearing  in  The  Keepsake  for  1836. 
A  Voice  from  the  Factories.     A  poem  (John  Murray.     1836). 
Separation  of  Mother  and  Child  by  the  Law  of  Custody  of  Infants 
considered.     A  prose  pamphlet  printed  for  private  circulation  by 
Ridgway.     1837. 
A  Plain   Letter   to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  by   Pearse   Stevenson   (a 
nom-de-plume).      Printed   for  distribution   among    members    of 
Parliament  by  J.  Ridgway.     Not  published.     1839. 
The  Dream  and  Other  Poems  (Henry  Colburn.     1840). 
The  Child  of  the  Islands.     A  Poem  (Chapman  &  Hall.     1845). 
Fisher's  Drawing-Room  Scrap-Book.     Poems  (1846-48). 
Aunt  Carry's  Ballads  for  Children  (1847). 
Letters  to  the  Mob.     Published   first  in   The  Morning  Chronicle ; 

collected  1848. 
Stuart  of  Dunleath.     A  Novel  (1851). 
English  Laws  for  Women  in  the  Nineteenth  Century.     Printed  for 

private  circulation  (1854). 
A  Letter  to  the  Queen  on  Lord  Cranworth's  Marriage  and  Divorce 

Bill  (Longman,  Brown,  Green  &  Longmans.     1855). 
Verses  on  Burns.     Centenary  Festival,  1859. 
The  Lady  of  La  Garaye.     A  Poem  (Macmillan  &  Co.     1862). 
Lost   and   Saved.      A   Novel    (Hurst   &    Blackett.      1863.     Rights 

purchased  by  Macmillan). 
Poems  and  Sketches  in  Macmillan's  Magazine  (1861-75). 
Old  Sir  Douglas.     A  Serial. 


299 


LIST  OF   MRS.   NORTON'S  SONGS 

The  Land  I  Love  :    "  Fair  though  the  land  may  be. ' 

The  Lonely  Harp  :  "  Hush,  I  am  listening." 

The  Love  of  Helen  Douglas. 

The  Madman's  Lament. 

Marquita. 

Let  Lovers  Talk. 

The  Midshipman  :  "  Peace  be  around  thy  distant  grave. 

The  Missionary's  Grave  :  "Oh,  far  in  the  east." 

The  Morning  Star  :  "  Our  ship  held  her  course." 

The  Mother's  Lament :  "  Oh,  where  shall  I  wander  ? 

"Thy  Name  was  once  the  Magic  Spell." 

No  More  Sea  :  "  Like  the  wild,  ceaseless  motion  of  the  deep 

"  None  remember  thee." 

Not  Lost  but  Gone  before. 

The  Officer's  Funeral. 

"  Oh  Distant  Stars  whose  Tranquil  Light.'' 

"  Oh,  Happy  the  Life  we  Gipsies  lead." 

"  Oh,  take  me  back  to  Switzerland." 

The  Path  across  the  Seas  :  "  In  life's  delightful  morn.' 

Patrick,  macushla  :  "  Come,  Patrick,  cheer  up." 

Pray  for  those  at  Sea. 

"  Since  Precious  Things  are  Purchased  Dear." 

The  Soldier's  Life  :  "  Dauntless  and  glad." 

"  Take  thy  Lute,  oh  Gentle  Friend." 

Smiles  of  the  Past :  "  In  life's  early  dawning." 

The  Song  of  the  Fairies  :  "  Sleep,  mortal,  sleep." 

Song  of  the  New  Year  :  "  Hark  !  the  old  year  is  flown." 

"  Sorrowful  Trees,  Cypress  and  Yew." 

The  Talisman  :  "  Oh  beloved,  now  we  are  parted." 

To-morrow  :  "  Bright  smiling  eyes." 

The  Indian  Exile  :  "  An  exile  in  the  Indian  land 

Upon  his  pillow  dreaming  lay." 
"  Love  not,  love  not— the  thing  you  love  may  die." 
300 


LIST   OF   MRS.   NORTON'S   SONGS  301 

"  We  are  the  wandering  breezes." 

"  We  have  been  friends  together,  shall  a  harsh  word  part  us  now  ? " 

Woman's  Truth  :  "  Doubt  me  not,  soldier." 

"Forget  me  not,  though  others  fairer." 

The  Birdie's  Song  :  "As  I  came  o'er  the  distant  hills  I  heard  a  wee 

birdie  sing." 
Come  what  may  :  "  Since  thy  dear  smile  was  lost." 
"  By  Mossy  Bank  in  Forest  Wildwood." 
King  Frederick's  Camp. 
The  Cossack's  War  Song. 
The   Faithful    Lover :    composed   for   and   sung  by    Miss  Christine 

Nilsson. 
Bingen  on  the  Rhine  :  "A  soldier  of  the  legion." 
But  Thou  :  "  Delia,  some  few  short  years  ago." 
The  Fairy  Bells  :  I  dreamt,  'Twas  but  a  dream." 
"  I  have  left  my  quiet  home." 
Absalom. 

A  Health  to  the  Outward  Bound. 

The  Blind  Man's  Bride  :  "  Oh,  blind  I  am  and  helpless." 
"  Oh,  slumber  now,  my  darling." 
"  Fade,  watch-lights,  fade." 
"  Hopeless  I've  watched  thee." 
My  Arab  steed  :  "  My  beautiful,  my  beautiful." 
The  King  of  Denmark's  Ride. 
Juanita  :  "  Soft  o'er  the  fountain." 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  Lord,  198 

Abinger,  Lord,  case  tried  before, 
125,  148 

Adelaide,  Queen,  37 

Age,  The,  publishes  slanders 
against  Mrs.  Norton,  82 

Airlie,  Lady,  258 

Aix  la  Chapelle,  62 

Albion,  the  transport,  3 

Albret,  Charles  d',  289 

Almack's,  dance  of  the  months  at, 
12 

Alvanley,  Lord,  285 

"  Amouivada  and  Sebastian,"  8 

Antrim,  Earl  of,  1 

Antwerp,  59,  60 

Ardkinglass,  1,  3 

Ashley,  Lady,  112 

Ashley,  Lord,  112.  See  Shaftes- 
bury 

Astor  Library,  141 

Auckland,  Lord,  56 

Austin,  Lucie,  193 

Babbage,  Mr.,  letter  from  Mrs. 
Norton,  44 

Barlow,  Rev.  Mr.,  letter  from 
Mrs.  Norton,  87 

Barnes,  Thomas,  editor  of  The 
Times,  198 

Barrington,  Lady,  56 

Bates,  William,  "  Maclise  Gallery 
of  Portraits  "  edited  by,  39 

Bayley,  Sir  John,  legal  adviser  to 
G.  Norton,  119  ;  his  prejudice 
against  Mrs.  Norton,  119;  un- 
dertakes the  task  of  arbitrator 
between  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Norton, 
120  ;  on  the  result  of  his  in- 
vestigation into  their  case,  121- 
123  ;   gives  evidence  in  the  trial 


before  Lord  Abinger,  125  ;  de- 
nies Mr.  Norton's  assertions 
against  his  wife,  234 

Beau  vale,  Lord,  213 

Beechey,  Sir  William,  9 

Belgians,  Leopold,  King  of  the, 
20  ;  his  criticism  on  Mrs.  Nor- 
ton, 178 

Belgioso,  Princess,  65 

Belle  Assemble" e,  La,  editorship  of, 
46 

Blackwood,  Mrs.,  birth  of  a  son, 
13  ;  at  Hampton  Court,  59. 
See  Duffer  in 

Blackwood,  Price,  33  ;  his  mar- 
riage, 11.     See  Dufferin 

Blessington,  Countess  of,  49 

Brandon,  Lady,  her  relations  with 
Lord  Melbourne,  33  ;  legacy 
from  him,  213 

Brighton,  31 

British  and  Foreign  Review,  The, 
insulting  article  on  Mrs.  Norton, 
148 

Brookfield,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  impres- 
sions of  Mrs.  Norton,  195 

Brougham,  Lord,  32  ;  in  Paris, 
64 ;  his  devotion  to  Mrs.  Norton, 
64 ;  opposition  to  the  Infant 
Custody  Bill,  146  ;  speech 
against  the  Bill,  147  ;  on  amend- 
ing the  Law  of  Divorce,  248 

Browning,  Mrs.,  "  Cry  of  the 
Children,"  112 

Brussels,  59 

Bull,  proprietor  of  The  Court 
Magazine,  55 

Bulwer,  Sir  Lytton,  142 

Buren,  John  Van,  his  impressions 
of  Mrs.  Norton,  156 

Burn,  Mr.,  57 


303 


3°4 


INDEX 


Burns,  Robert,  centenary  of  his 

birth,  264 
Bush,  Mr.,  41 
Butler,  Mr.,  181 

Cairo,  286 

Calais,  59 

Callander,  Fanny,  3.   See  Graham 

Callander,  Georgiana,  3 

Callander,  Henrietta,  1.  See 
Sheridan,  Mrs. 

Callander,  James,  1 

Campbell,  Lady  Dorothy,  90 

Campbell,  Miss  Colin,  109  note 

Campbell,  Sir  John,  Attorney- 
General,  93,  94  ;  "  Lives  of  the 
Lord  Chancellors,"  93  note  ;  on 
Lord  Melbourne's  loss  of  office, 
179 

Canning,  George,  33 

Cape  of  Good  Hope,  2 

Capri,  275,  296 

Carlisle,  Lady,  64 

"  Case  of  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Norton," 
141 

Castellamare,  182 

Catholic  Emancipation,  18,  197 

Chartist  disturbances,  189 

Chatsworth,  19 

Chepnell,  Dr.,  266 

"  Child  of  the  Islands,  The,"  184- 
188 

Chorley,  Mr.,  publishes  a  Memoir 
of  Mrs.  Hemans,  134 

Clanricarde,  Lady,  65 

Clarence,  Duchess  of,  poem  dedi- 
cated to,  25 

Clarence,  Duke  of,  25 

Clements,  Lord,  27 

Cliveden,  262 

Clumber,  239 

Colburn,  H.,  publisher,  174  ;  ex- 
tracts from  his  New  Monthly 
Magazine,  3  note,  4  note,  38 

Colburn  &  Bentley,  Messrs.,  24 

Coleridge,  Hartley,  his  review  on 
Mrs.  Norton's  poems,  175 

Cologne,  59 

Comins,  Victor,  257 

"  Comparison,  A,  between  the 
English  and  Scotch  Law  of 
Divorce,"  133 

Conyngham,  Lady,  181 

Corn  Laws,  repeal  of  the,  197,  198 

Court,  Elizabeth  a,  her  marriage, 

274 
Court,    General  Charles    Ashe    a, 
274 


Court  Magazine,  editorship  of  the, 
46 

Covent  Garden  Theatre,  per- 
formance of  The  Gypsy  Father 
at  the,  37 

Cowes,  162 

Cowper,  Lady,  18 

Cowper,  Lady  Emily,  112 

Cowper,  Lady  Fanny,  112 

Cowper,  Lady  H.,  288 

Craig,  Miss  Isabel,  264 

Craigforth,  1 

Cran worth,  Lord,  his  Bill  to  re- 
form the  English  Marriage  and 
Divorce  Laws,  243 

Creevy,  extract  from  his  diary,  92 

Crimean  War,  outbreak  of,  239 

Cunard,  Sir  Samuel,  181 

"  Dandies'  Rout,  The,"  5 

Delane,  John  Thaddeus,  editor  of 
The  Times,  198  ;  article  on  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  198 

Denman,  Lord,  his  support  of  the 
Infant  Custody  Bill,  146 

"  Destiny,  A,"  175 

Devonshire,  Duke  of,  his  atten- 
tions to  Mrs.  Norton,  19 

Dinan,  270 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  his  friendship 
with  the  Sheridans,  48  ;  votes 
in  favour  of  the  Infant  Custody 
Bill,  145 

Divorce,  Law  of,  Bill  to  amend, 
243-250 

Dramatic  Representation  Bill, 
failure,  51 

"  Dream,  The,"  extract  from,  6  ; 
publication,  174 ;  second  edi- 
tion, 176 ;  pecuniary  results, 
177 

Drury  Lane  Theatre,  destroyed 
by  fire,  2 

Dufferin,  Lady,  at  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  2  ;  story  of  her 
brother-in-law,  48  ;  her  visit  to 
Italy,  156  ;  death  of  her  hus- 
band, 182  ;  in  Paris,  192  ; 
settles  in  London,  201  ;  at 
Lansdowne  House,  260 ;  her 
appearance,  260  ;  son,  260  ; 
second  marriage,  261  note ; 
death,  284 

Dufferin,  Lord,  his  death,  182 

Dufferin,  Lord,  his  "  Life  of  Helen 
Sheridan,"  2  ;  on  the  charac- 
teristics of  Fletcher  Norton, 
207  ;    novel  dedicated  to,  284 


INDEX 


305 


Duncombe,  Thomas,  285 
Dundee  steamship,  100 


Eastlake,   Lady,   her  impressions 

of  Mrs.  Norton,  222,  254 
Eden,  Emily,  57 
Edinburgh,  1,  264 
Edinburgh     Review,      review      of 

"  The  Child  of  the  Islands,"  186 
Ehrenbreitstein,  poem  on,  60-62 
Ellice,  Edward,  154 
Ellice,  Robert,  yy 
Ellis,  Lady,  255 
Ellis,  Sir  Henry,  255 
Ellison,  Mr.,  on  G.  Norton's  mode 

of  discharging  his  duties,  294 
English  Annual,  editorship  of,  49 
"  English  Laws  for  Women  in  the 

Nineteenth  Century,"   10,  239- 

243 

Essex,  Earl  of,  276  ;  novel  dedi- 
cated to,  276 

Examiner,  The,  letter  in,  149 

Factories,  investigation  into  the 
condition  of  child-labour  in,  112 

Falkland,  Lord,  his  marriage,  32 

Federigo,  Maria  Chiara  Elisa,  her 
marriage,  253 

"  Fever  Dream,  The,"  115,  175 

Feversham,  Lord,  his  marriage, 
224  note 

Fisher's  Drawing-room  Scrap-book, 
poems  in,  158,  172  ;  editorship 
of  the,  189  ;    frontispiece,  206 

Fitzclarence,  Lady  Amelia,  her 
marriage,  32 

Fitzgerald,  his  "  Lives  of  the 
Sheridans,"  extracts  from,  12, 
87,  91,  132 

Florence,  257 

Follett,  Sir  William,  Solicitor- 
General,  93,  234 

Fonblanque,  Mr.,  his  paper,  The 
Examiner,  149 

Fox,  Lady  Mary,  81,  141 

Frampton  Court,  262 

Fraser's  Magazine,  review  of 
"  The  Undying  One,"  25  ;  pub- 
lishes likenesses  of  Mrs.  Nor- 
ton, 38 

Geneva,  287 

George  IV.,  King,  his  death,  29 
Ghent,  59 
Gibson,  Eliza,  95 
Gifford,  Lord,  261  ;   his  marriage, 
261     note ;      appearance,     261 


note  ;  marble  bust  of  Mrs.  Nor- 
ton, 296 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  his  opposition 
to  the  reform  of  the  Divorce 
Law,  250 

Glenrossie,  3 

Godwin,  Mrs.,  annuity  for,  89, 
141-143 

Godwin,  William,  his  death,  89 

Gordon,  Sir  Alexander  Duff,  195  ; 
birth  of  a  son,  210  ;  letters 
from  Mrs.  Norton,  210-212,  276 

Gordon,  Lady  Duff,  195  ;  letter 
from  Mrs.  Norton,  223  ;  article 
on,  286  ;    her  death,  286 

Gordon,  Lucy,  257 

Gower,  Lord  Ronald,  letter  from 
Mrs.  Norton,  286 

Graham,  Sir  James,  3  ;  First  Lord 
of  the  Admiralty,  33  ;  resigns 
office,  145  ;  secession  from  the 
Whigs,  145 

Graham,  Lady,  156  ;  her  appear- 
ance, 58 

Graham,  Mabel,  her  marriage,  224 

Grant,  Sir  Colquhoun,  67  ;  elope- 
ment of  his  daughter,  67,  68  ; 
fights  a  duel,  68 

Grant,  Miss  Marcia,  her  runaway 
marriage,  67 

Grantley,  Brinsley,  Lord,  his 
illness  and  death,  296.  See 
Norton 

Grantley,  Fletcher,  Lord,  8  ; 
relations  with  his  wife,  9  ; 
influence  against  Mrs.  Norton, 
82,  84  ;  dislike  of  his  nephews, 
83  ;    death,  295 

Grantley,  Lady,  relations  with 
her  husband,  9 

Granville,  Lady,  64  ;  extract 
from  her  diary,   19 

"  Great  Ladies,"  46 

Greville,  Charles,  011  the  friendship 
between  Queen  Victoria  and 
Lord  Melbourne,  127  ;  on  Lord 
Melbourne's  loss  of  office,  180 

Greville,   Henry,   64 

Grey,  Lord,  Prime  Minister,  32  ; 
resignation,  64 

Grote,  his  opposition  to  the 
Infant  Custody  Bill,   145 

Guildford,  8 

Gypsy  Father,  The,  37 

Hamilton,    Mr.    James,    his    im- 
pressions of  Mrs.  Norton,  164 
Hampton  Court,  life  at,  4 

39 


306  INDEX 


Harvey,  Daniel,  votes  in  favour 
of  the  Infant  Custody  Bill,  145 

Hayter,  John,  his  portraits  of 
Mrs.  Norton,  45 

Hay  ward,  Abraham,  no;  on 
G.  Norton's  insult  to  his  wife, 
124  ;  editor  of  The  Quarterly 
Review  of  Jurisprudence,  132 
note  ;  hatred  of  his  Christian 
name,  159  ;  collects  the  affi- 
davits for  Mrs.  Norton,  159  ;  ex- 
perience with  Lord  Melbourne, 
160  ;  letters  from  Mrs.  Norton, 
162-164,  194.  209,  254,  256, 
264,  285,  287,  291  ;  his  review 
of  "  The  Child  of  the  Islands," 
186  ;  on  the  impossibility  of 
advising  Mrs.  Norton,  235  ; 
Secretary  of  the  Poor  Law 
Board,  255  ;  "  Biographical 
and  Critical  Essays,"  256  ; 
at  Lansdowne  House,  260 ; 
notice  of  the  life  and  character 
of  Lady  Palmerston,  287 

Heath,  Mr.,  publisher  of  The 
Keepsake,  66 

Hemans,  Mrs.,  Memoir  of,  134 

Herbert,  Sidney,  181,  189,  195, 
261  ;  his  parents,  197  ;  char- 
acteristics, 197  ;  marriage,  274  ; 
illness  and  death,  274 ;  verses 
on,  274 

Holland,  Lady,  56  ;  her  death,  197 

Holland,  Lord,  poem  dedicated 
to,  21  ;  support  of  the  Infant 
Custody  Bill,  146  ;  his  letter  to 
Mrs.  Norton,  147 

Holland,  Queen  of,  her  friendship 
with  Mrs.  Norton,  214  ;  ap- 
pearance, 214;  loss  of  her 
second  son,  214 

Hook,  Theodore,  his  appearance, 
26  ;  skill  in  extempore  com- 
position, 26  ;  treatment  of 
Mrs.  Norton,  27 

Houghton,  Lord,  215 

Howard,  Harry,  211 

"  In  the  Storm,"  268-270 
Infant    Custody    Bill,    130,     137, 
139  ;    withdrawn,  140  ;    passed 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  145  ; 
amendment    on,    145  ;     in    the 
Lords,     146  ;      rejected,     147 ; 
carried  through,  156 
Influenza,  epidemic  of,    115 
"  Invisibility    of    London     Hus- 
bands, The,"  46 


Ireland,  2 

Isle  of  Wight,  54 

Jameson,  Mrs.,  letter  from  Fanny 

Kemble,  28 
Jersey,  Countess  of,  18 
Jocelyn,  Lord,   112 
John  Bull  review,  25,  26 
Jonson,  Ben,  his  play,  Every  Man 

in  His  Humour,  196 
Jordan,  Mrs.,  81  note 
"  Juanita,"  289 

Keepsake,  editorship  of  the,  66  ; 
poems  in  the,  109 

Keir,   224,   284 

Kelly,  Sir  Fitzroy,  125  ;  letter 
from  Mrs.  Norton,  252 

Kemble,  Fanny,  her  first  meeting 
with  Mrs.  Norton,  26  ;  "  Re- 
collections of  a  Girlhood," 
26  ;  impressions  of  Mrs.  Norton, 
28  ;  introduction  to  Lord  Mel- 
bourne, 36  ;  description  of  a 
dinner  at  "  Palazzo  Boltoni," 
181 

Kemble,  John,  his  attack  on  Mrs. 
Norton,   150 

Kettlethorpe,   166,   268 

Kinglake,  194  ;  "  Eothen,"  195 

Kinnaird,  Douglas,  114 

Kinnaird,  Lord,  3 

Kisselieff,  144  ;  in  London,  145 

"  Lady  of  La  Garaye,  The,"  271 
Lamb,  Lady  Caroline,  her  death, 

33 
Lamb,  William,  287 
Landseer,     E.,     his     portrait     of 

Mrs.  Norton,   174 
Lansdowne,  Lord,  182,  260 ;  Lord 

President,  33  ;  poem  dedicated 

to,  272-274  ;   brochure  on,  292  ; 

death,  293 
"  Law  of  Libel,  The,"  46 
Leman,     Mr.,     208 ;     contradicts 

George  Norton's  misstatements, 

234 
Lenox  Library,  152,  165 
"  Letter  to   the   Queen   on   Lord 

Cranworth's       Marriage       and 

Divorce  Bill,"  246 
"  Letters  to  the  Mob,"  189 
Leven,  Earl  of,  284 
Linley,  Miss,    1 
Lisbon,  210  ;   British  Legation  at, 

207 
Littell's  Living  Age,  283 


INDEX 


307 


Lockhart,    J.    G.,    113,    194;    his 

death,  255 
Longleat,  41 
"  Lord  Chancellor,  Letter  to  the," 

I5I 
"  Lost  and  Saved,"  276-282 
Louis  Philippe,  King,  64 
Lyell,  Lady,  her  appearance,  222 
Lyndhurst,     Lord,      no  ;      Lord 
Chancellor,    65  ;     his    political 
views,     65  ;       introduces     the 
Infant   Custody   Bill   into   the 
House  of  Lords,  146  ;   speech  on 
amending  the  Law  of  Divorce, 
249 

Macaulay,  Lord,  260 
Macdonnell,  Lady  Elizabeth,   1 
MacFarlane,  Sir  Robert,  68 
"  Maclise    Gallery   of    Portraits," 

39 

Macmillan's  Magazine,  283 

Macready,  extract  from  his  diary, 
181 

Madeira,  3 

Mahon,  Lord,  his  amendment  on 
the  Infant  Custody  Bill,   145 

Maiden  Bradley,  41,  132 

"  Maiden's  Dream,  The,"  59 

Malmesbury,  Lord,  94,  116;  ex- 
tract from  his  diary,  201 

Malta,  2 

Margate,  39 

Marriage  and  Divorce  Laws,  Bill 
to  reform,  243-250 

McDonald,  Sir  John,  26 

Melbourne,  Lord,  17  ;  Home 
Secretary,  33  ;  his  career,  33  ; 
relations  with  Lady  Brandon 
33  ;  friendship  with  Mrs.  Nor 
ton,  34,  88,  107  ;  character 
istics,  35  ;  dismissal  from  office 
64  ;  criticism  of  "  The  Wife,' 
71  ;  at  Panshanger,  83  ;  his 
letters  to  Mrs.  Norton  on  the 
treatment  of  her  husband,  83, 
85,  86  ;  assistance  to  Mrs. 
Godwin,   90  ;     charges  against, 

91  ;     anxiety   about    the    trial, 

92  ;  illness,  92  ;  the  trial,  93  ; 
acquittal,  94  ;  on  the  character 
of  G.  Norton,  105  ;  restrains 
Mrs.  Norton  from  publishing  a 
statement  of  her  case,  126, 
129  ;  friendship  with  Queen 
Victoria,  127  ;  affidavit,  160  ; 
his  fall  from  office,  179  ; 
resumes    his   old   habits,    180 ; 


stroke  of  paralysis,  180  ;  ap- 
pearance, 181  ;  new  relations 
with  Mrs.  Norton,  181  ;  letters 
from  her,  192,  193,  200 ;  his 
death,  210  ;    legacies,  213 

Menzies,  Lady,  16,  46,  yy  ;  re- 
lations with  her  sister-in-law, 
16  ;  treatment  of  Mrs.  Norton's 
children,  101 

Menzies,  Sir  Neil,  16  ;  his  liking 
for  his  sister-in-law,  17 

Menzies,  Sir  Robert,  his  marriage, 
202 

Meredith,  Owen,  262 

Milman,  Dean,  260 

Milne,  Monckton,  215.  See 
Houghton 

Moira,  Earl  of,  1 

Moore,  Martha,  94 

Moore,  Mrs.,  letter  from  Mrs. 
Norton,  39 

Moore,  Tom,  on  the  appearance  of 
Caroline  Sheridan,  12  ;  "  Lalla 
Rookh,"  56 

Morley's  "  Life  of  Gladstone," 
248 

Morning  Chronicle,   189 

Morris,  Jack,  his  claims  for  help, 
192 

"  Mother's  Heart,  The,"  78 

Motley,  J.  L.,  48 ;  impressions  of 
the  Queen  of  Holland,  214  ;  in 
London,  258  ;  meeting  with  Mrs. 
Norton,  258  ;  impressions  of 
her,  258  ;  at  Lansdowne  House, 
260  ;  at  Frampton  Court,  262  ; 
breaks  a  blood-vessel,  293 

Motley,  Mary,  her  marriage,  284 

Moxon,  the  publisher,   194 

Mulgrave,  Lord,  65 

Murray,  John,  his  refusal  to 
publish  Mrs.  Norton's  poem, 
59  ;  publishes  the  "  Voice 
from  the  Factories,"  112  ;  letters 
from  her,  112,  113,  117,  150, 
175  ;  on  the  publication  of 
"  The  Natural  Claim  of  a 
Mother,"  etc.,  131 
Murray,  Mr.  tutor  to  the  Norton 

boys,   193 
"  My  Arab  Steed,"  26 

Naples,  British  Embassy  at,  226 

"  Natural  Claim  of  a  Mother  to 

the  Custody  of  her  Children  as 

affected  by  the  Common  Law 

Right  of  the  Father,"  130,  140 

Netherby,  69 


3oS 


INDEX 


New  Brunswick,  181 

Newcastle,  Duke  of,  189,  239, 
255 

Nicholles,  Mr.,  his  tract  on 
"  Teeth,"   51 

Normanby,  Lord,  182 

Norton,  Augusta,  her  relations 
with  Mrs.  Norton,  42-44 ; 
eccentricities,  42  ;  influence 
against  her,   102 

Norton,  Brinsley,  his  birth,  42  ; 
affection  for  his  mother,  171, 
172  ;  character,  203  ;  defence 
of  his  brother,  204  ;  at  Uni- 
versity College,  226  ;  extra- 
vagance and  debts,  226  ;  his 
marriage,  253  ;  at  Florence, 
257  ;  Dinan,  270 ;  death  of 
his  mother,  296  ;  illness  and 
death,  296 

Norton,  Mrs.  Caroline,  her 
parents,   1  ;    date  of  her  birth, 

2  ;  appearance,  2,  11,  35,  58, 
no,  155,  164,  207,  222,  295  ; 
at  Ardkinglass,   2  ;     education, 

3  ;  death  of  her  father,  3  ; 
life  at  Hampton  Court,  4  ; 
104  ;    fondness  for  theatricals, 

4  ;  first  literary  venture,  5  ; 
lines  on  her  mother,  6  ;  at 
school,  7,  8  ;  her  songs,  8  ; 
poem  "  Amouivada  and  Se- 
bastian," 8  ;  first  meetings 
with  G.  Norton,  9  ;  her  shyness, 
12,  135  ;  death  of  her  brother, 
13  ;  marriage,  13  ;  character- 
istics, 14,  28,  104,  no,  186, 
190,  290  ;  relations  with  her 
husband,  15,  41,  49,  62-64, 
80,  102,  187,  212,  217  ;  visits 
to  Scotland,  16,  46  ;  her  house 
at  Storey's  Gate,  17  ; 
differences  of  opinion  with 
her  husband,  18  ;  admirers, 
19  ;  "  The  Sorrows  of  Rosalie, 
a  Tale,  with  other  Poems," 
21-23  ;  birth  of  a  son,  23  ; 
her  poem  "  The  Undying  One," 
23-26  ;  first  meeting  with 
Fanny  Kemble,  26  ;  refuses 
to  live  in  the  country,  30 ; 
at  Brighton,  31  ;  friendship 
with  Lord  Melbourne,  34,  83  ; 
presented  at  Court,  37 ;  per- 
formance of  her  play  The 
Gypsy  Father,  37  ;  portraits, 
38,  45,  174,  206;  on  the  altera- 
tions   at    Storey's    Gate,    39 ; 


at  Maiden  Bradley,  41  ;  birth 
of  a  second  son,  42  ;  relations 
with  her  sister-in-law  Augusta, 
42-44  ;  assumes  the  editorship 
of  La  Belle  Assemblee  and 
Court  Magazine,  46  ;  satirical 
papers,  46  ;  editor  of  The 
English  Annual,  49  ;  contri- 
butions to  it,  50  ;  her  sketch 
of  Hermione,  50-52  ;  cruel 
treatment  by  her  husband,  52- 
54,  63,  76,  82,  245  ;  birth  of  a 
third  son,  54  ;  at  Worthing, 
55  ;    affection  for  her  relations, 

58  ;  conclusion  of  her  engage- 
ment with  The  Court  Magazine, 

59  ;  "  The  Maiden's  Dream," 
59 ;  tour  abroad,  60  ;  poem 
on  Ehrenbreitstein,  60—62  ;  at 
Paris,  63,  254,  257  ;  editor  of 
The  Keepsake,  66  ;  stories  of 
her  children,  66  ;  visit  to 
Richmond,  67  ;  publication  of 
her  novel  "  The  Wife  and 
Woman's  Reward,"  70-75  ; 
"  Erberfeldt  "  unfinished,  70  ; 
leaves  her  husband,  76  ;  returns 
to  him,  76  ;  loss  of  a  child, 
yy  ;  love  for  her  children,  78  ; 
her  poem  "  The  Mother's 
Heart,"  78  ;  "To  my  Piano," 
79  ;  her  description  of  the 
quarrel  about  the  children, 
80-82  ;  charges  against  her, 
82,  84  ;  parted  from  her 
children,  83,  103  ;  attempts 
to  compromise  her,  85  ;  pro- 
poses to  return,  87 ;  suit  of 
divorce,  87  ;  her  relations  with 
Lord  Melbourne,  88,  229  ;  helps 
in  obtaining  a  pension  for 
Mrs.  Godwin,  90,  141-143  ; 
attempts  to  recover  her  chil- 
dren, 91,  104  ;  result  of  the 
trial,  96  ;  terms  of  the  legal 
separation,  96,  208  ;  efforts 
to  see  her  children,  98-100  ; 
interview  with  her  husband, 
101  ;  relations  with  her  mother, 
104  ;  on  her  sufferings,  108  ; 
shares  a  house  in  Green  Street 
with  her  uncle,  in;  her  poem 
"  Voice  from  the  Factories," 
in  ;  delays  in  publishing, 
114  ;  attack  of  influenza,  115  ; 
"Fever  Dream,"  115,  175; 
return  into  society,  116 ;  on 
the  loneliness  of  her  position, 


INDEX 


309 


116,  191  ;  interview  with  Sir 
John  Bayley,  120  ;  payment 
of  her  debts,  123,  245  ;  result 
of  the  case  tried  before  Lord 
Abinger,  125,  148  ;  restrained 
by  Lord  Melbourne  from  pub- 
lishing a  statement  of  her 
case,  126,  129  ;  her  prose 
pamphlet  "  The  Natural  Claim 
of    a   Mother,"    etc.,    130-134, 

140  ;  resolves  to  print  it  at 
her  own  expense,  131,  133  ; 
sees  her  children,  139,  164  ; 
personal  influence  on  the  Infant 
Custody  Bill,  140  ;  "  The  Case 
of    the    Hon.     Mrs.     Norton," 

141  ;  removal  to  Bolton  Street, 
144  ;  defence  in  The  Examiner, 
149,  151  ;  her  views  on 
woman's  rights,  149  ;  "  Letter 
to  the  Lord  Chancellor,"  151- 
154  ;  visit  to  Italy,  157  ; 
lines  on,  158  ;  petition  to  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  159  ;  persecu- 
tions, 160-162  ;  on  the  death 
of  her  son  William,  166-170 ; 
allowed  to  have  her  children, 
170  ;  on  their  characters,  171  ; 
poem  "  The  Sons  of  the  Duke 
of  Buccleuch,"  172  ;  "  The 
Dream  and  other  Poems," 
174  ;  her  title  of  "  The  Byron 
of  Modern  Poetesses,"  175; 
presented  to  Queen  Victoria, 
178  ;  entertainments  at  the 
"  Palazzo  Boltoni,"  180,  181  ; 
new  relations  with  Lord  Mel- 
bourne, 181  ;  death  of  her 
brother  and  uncle,  182  ;  "  The 
Child  of  the  Islands,"  184; 
illness,  185,  193,  295  ;  editor  of 
Fisher's  Drawing-room  Scrap- 
book,  189;  "Letters  to  the  Mob," 
189 ;  new  friends,  195  ;  anxi- 
eties about  her  son  Fletcher, 
202  ;  on  the  character  of 
Brinsley,  203  ;  signs  a  deed 
of  separation,  209  ;  illness  of 
her  son  Fletcher,  210  ;  at 
Lisbon,  210  ;  on  Portuguese 
society,  211  ;  legacy  from 
Lord  Melbourne,  213  ;  travels 
abroad,  213  ;  friendship  with 
the  Queen  of  Holland,  214; 
death  of  her  mother,  214, 
225  ;  friendship  with  Sir 
William  Stirling-Maxwell,  215  ; 
her    novel    "  Stuart    of    Dun- 


leath,"  218-222  ;  at  Keir,  224, 
284  ;  joins  her  son  Fletcher 
at  Naples,  226  ;  reduction  of 
her  allowance,  227,  252  ;  bru- 
tality of  her  husband's  last 
attack,  228-232  ;  her  letters 
to  The  Times,  233,  235  ;  accu- 
sations of  her  husband,  233 ; 
reputation,  235-237  ;  "  English 
Laws  for  Women  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century,"  239-243  ;  her 
allowance  withheld,  245  ; 
"  Letter  to  the  Queen  on 
Lord  Cranworth's  Divorce  Bill," 
246-248  ;  marriage  of  her  son 
Brinsley,  253  ;  in  Ireland, 
255  ;  meeting  with  Motley, 
258  ;  in  Edinburgh,  264  ;  death 
of  her  son  Fletcher,  265-268  ; 
"  In  the  Storm,"  268-270  ; 
at  Dinan,  270  ;  her  last  long 
poem,  "  The  Lady  of  La 
Garaye,"  271  ;  dedication  to 
Lord  Lansdowne,  272-274 ; 
verses  on  Sidney  Herbert,  274  ; 
birth  of  her  first  grandchild, 
275  ;  care  of  her  grandchildren, 
275  ;  her  novel  "  Lost  and 
Saved,"  276-282  ;  "  Old  Sir 
Douglas,"  283  ;  death  of  her 
sister  Lady  Dufferin,  284  ; 
serious  falls,  286  ;  article  on 
Lady  Duff  Gordon,  286  ;  grief 
at  the  death  of  the  Duchess  of 
Sutherland,  286 ;  of  Lady 
Palmerston,  287  ;  in  Switzer- 
land, 287  ;  sensitiveness  to 
adverse  criticism,  289  ;  her 
song  "  Juanita,"  289  ;  arrange- 
ments with  her  publishers, 
290  ;     death    of    her    husband, 

295  ;  busts,  296  ;  second  mar- 
riage, 296  ;    illness   and  death, 

296  ;  list  of  her  writings, 
299  ;    list  of  her  songs,   300 

Norton,  Carlotta,  her  birth,  275 
Norton,  Mrs.  Charles,  109  note 
Norton,  Fletcher  Spencer,  his 
birth,  23  ;  attack  of  scarlatina, 
80  ;  character,  171,  203,  207  ; 
influence  over  his  father,  171  ; 
relations  with  his  mother,  202  ; 
religious  views,  207  ;  appointed 
to  the  British  Legation  in 
Lisbon,  207  ;  invalided  home, 
208;  illness,  210;  recovery, 
210  ;  Secretary  of  the  British 
Embassy  at  Naples,  226  ;  trans- 


3io 


INDEX 


f erred    to    Paris,    257  ;     illness 
and    death,    265-268  ;     funeral 
at  Kettlethorpe,  268 
Norton,     George,    first    meetings 
with     Caroline     Sheridan,     9  ; 
his  appearance,  10  ;    character- 
istics, io,  14  ;    elected  member 
for    Guildford,    13  ;     marriage, 
13  ;    poverty,   14  ;    cruel  treat- 
ment  of   his   wife,    15,    52-54, 
63,  76,  82,  167,  245  ;   difference 
of  opinions  with  his  wife,   18  ; 
political  views,   18  ;   loss  of  his 
seat,    29  ;   appointed    Judge  in 
the  Lambeth  Police  Court,  38 ; 
visit  to  Scotland,  46;  Recorder 
for  Guildford,  57  ;    trip  abroad, 
60 ;    lameness,  62  ;    his  selfish 
tyranny,    62  ;      relations    with 
Miss  Vaughan,  75,  yy  ;    appeals 
to  his  wife  to  return,  76  ;  straits 
for   money,    yy  ;     removes   the 
children,      81,      83  ;      charges 
against  his  wife,  82,  84  ;  refuses 
to    take    her    back,    87  ;     suit 
for  divorce,  87  ;    relations  with 
Lord   Melbourne,    88  ;     loss   of 
his    case,    94 ;     his    terms    for 
a  legal  separation,  96-98,  208  ; 
interview  with   his  wife,    10 1  ; 
his  "  Greenacre  Letters,"    102, 
117;     liability    for    her    debts, 
123  ;   death  of  his  son  William, 
166  ;      his     affection     for     his 
sons,    171  ;     relations   with   his 
wife,   187,  212,  217  ;     kindness 
to  the  poor,  187,  294  ;    signs  a 
deed    of   separation,    209  ;     on 
reducing   his   wife's   allowance, 
225  ;    dishonours  her  cheques, 
227  ;      brutality     of     his     last 
attack  on  her,  228-232  ;    letter 
of    accusation    in    The   Times, 
223  ;      assumes    possession    of 
her  contracts,  238  ;    withholds 
her     allowance,     245  ;      retires 
from  his  police  magistracy,  294 ; 
discharge    of     his    duty,    294  ; 
death,  295 
Norton,  James,  203 
Norton,  Richard,  his  birth,  275  ; 
his  progress  in  languages,  293 
Norton,   William,   his   birth,   54  ; 

his  accident  and  death,   166 
Nugent,  Lord,  256 

Ogle,  Miss  Esther,  1 
"  Old  Sir  Douglas,"  283 


Orsay,  Lady  Harriet  d',  182 
Oxford,  Bishop  of,  his  opposition 

to  the   reform  of    the  Divorce 

Law,  250 

"  Palazzo    Boltoni,"    dinners    at, 

181 
Palmerston,  Lady,   18,   112;    her 

death,   287  ;     notice  of  her  in 

The  Times,  287 
Panizzi,    Mr.,    letter    from    Mrs. 

Norton,   196 
Panshanger,  83 
Paris,  63 
Parliament,  Houses  of,  burning  of, 

64 
"  Peculiar  Customs  of  the  County 

of  Middlesex,  The,"  46 
Peel,    Sir    Robert,    32  ;     assumes 

office,     179  ;      change     of     his 

political    views,    197  ;     on    the 

repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,   198 
Pembroke,  Earl  of,  197 
Phipps,  Hon.  Edmund,  209 
Phipps,  Hon.  Mrs.  Edmund,  109 

note 
Phipps,  Mrs.  156 
Piers,    Captain    Edward,    molests 

Mrs.  Norton,   161 
Portugal,  210;    society  in,  211 
Potato  crop,  failure,  197 
Property,  Rights  of,  134 

Quarterly  Review,  review  on  Mrs. 

Norton's  poems,   175 
Quinares,  Countess,  212 

Rannoch,  Loch,  17,  46,  100 

Reeve,  Henry,  195  ;  editor  of 
the  "  Greville  Memoirs,"  198  ; 
on  the  announcement  of  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws, 
198  ;  article  in  The  Edinburgh 
Review  on  George  Meredith's 
novels,  198 

Reform  Bill  of  1832,  43 

Rhine,  the,  59 

Rice,  Miss  Spring,  her  marriage, 

157 

Richmond,  67 

Rio  de  Janeiro,  13 

Robinson,  Crabb,  194 

Roe,  Sir  Frederick,  chief  magis- 
trate, 81 

Rogers,  Samuel,  story  of,  III  ; 
letters  from  Mrs.  Norton,  166- 
168,  171,  186 

"  Rose  of  Jericho,  The,"  295 


INDEX 


3ii 


Rothschild,    Baroness    Adolf    de, 

288 
Royal  Bounty  Fund,  90 
Royal  William,  steam  vessel,  100 
Russell,  Lord  John,  56,  260 

St.  Leonards-on-Sea,   192 

St.  Maur,  Lord  Edward,  259 

St.  Maur,  Lady  Ulrica,  her  ap- 
pearance, 259 

Satirist,  The,  publishes  slanders 
against  Mrs.  Norton,  82 

Saunders  &  Otley,  Messrs.,  60 

Schuyler,  Major  Philip,  165 

Sefton,  Countess  of,  18 

Seymour,  Sir  Hamilton,  207,  212  ; 
head  of  the  British  Legation  at 
Lisbon,  261  ;    character,  261 

Seymour,  Hermione,  her  por- 
trait, 50-52 

Seymour,  Lady,  her  marriage,  29  ; 
letters  from  her  sister  Caroline, 
50,  56,  168-170,  257,  270  ; 
affection  for  her  relations,  58  ; 
appearance,  58,  155  ;  in  Paris, 
185,  192.     See  Somerset 

Seymour,  Lord,  his  marriage,  29  ; 
on  the  trip  abroad,  59  ;  fights 
a  duel,  68 

Seymour,  Ulrica,  57 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  his  life-work 
of  philanthropy,  112 

Shalford,  7,  8 

Shelburne,  Lady,  260 

Shelley,  Mrs.,  letters  from  Mrs. 
Norton,  90,  95,  133,  137,  141, 
142,  143,  177,  184;  tries  to 
obtain  an  annuity  for  Mrs. 
Godwin,  89,  141  ;  her  poetic 
liberalism,  136  ;  fascination  for 
Mrs.  Norton,  136 

Sheridan,  Brinsley,  2  ;  his  appear- 
ance, 4,  58,  262  ;  his  return 
from  India,  48  ;  runaway  mar- 
riage, 67  ;  charged  with  ab- 
duction, 69  ;    character,  69 

Sheridan,  Mrs.  Brinsley,  her  ap- 
pearance, 202 

Sheridan,  Caroline,  2.    See  Norton 

Sheridan,  Charles,  1,  3,  in,  154; 
his  translation  of  Romaic  songs, 
8  ;    his  death,  182 

Sheridan,  Charles,  17,  58  ;  his 
birth,  3  ;  secretary  at  the 
British  Embassy,  Paris, ;  183  ; 
his  death,  206 

Sheridan,  Frank,  3,  17,  58  ;  ap- 
pointed Clerk  of  the  Admiralty, 


33  ;  his  return  from  Ireland, 
65  ;  treasurer  of  the  British 
colony  at  Mauritius,  182  ;  death, 
182 

Sheridan,  Georgiana,  4,  17 ;  on 
the  separation  of  a  large  family, 
7  ;  letter  from,  24  ;  her  mar- 
riage, 29.     See  Seymour 

Sheridan,  Helen,  2  ;  her  mar- 
riage, 11.     See  Blackwood 

Sheridan,  Mrs.,  death  of  her  hus- 
band, 3  ;   return  from  the  Cape, 

3  ;    home  at   Hampton  Court, 

4  ;  appearance  and  character- 
istics of  her  children,  4  ;  her 
characteristics,  5,  104  ;  literary 
works,  5  ;  "  Carwell,"  6  ;  lines 
on,  6  ;  appearance,  6,  58  ; 
bringing  up  of  her  children,  7  ; 
at  the  Isle  of  Wight,  54  ;  re- 
lations with  her  daughter  Caro- 
line, 104  ;  in  Paris,  192  ;  letter 
from  her,  202-205  :  illness  and 
death,  214,  225  ;  her  transla- 
tion of  the  poem  "  The  Rose  of 
Jericho,"  296 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  1 

Sheridan,  Tom,  1  ;  his  children, 
2,  3  ;  fatal  disease,  2  ;  at  the 
Cape,  2  ;    death,  3 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,    197 

Smith,  Sidney,  his  criticism  of 
Mrs.  Norton,  156 

Somerset,  Duchess  of,  4  ;  her  ap- 
pearance, 259  ;  her  daughter 
and  sons,  259 

"  Sons  of  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch, 
The,"   172 

"  Sorrows  of  Rosalie,  The,  A  Tale, 
with  Other  Poems,"  21-23 

Stanhope,  Colonel  Leicester,  81 

Stanley,  Lady,  258 

Stevenson,  Pearse,  "  A  Plain 
Letter  to  the  Lord  Chancellor 
on  the  Law  of  Custody  of  In- 
fants," 152-154  ;  criticism  on, 
155 

Stirling-Maxwell,  Lady  Anna,  her 
marriage,  284 ;  appearance, 
284  ;   death,  293 

Stirling-Maxwell,  Sir  William,  2  ; 
his  "  Annals  of  the  Artists  in 
Spain,"  215  ;  friendship  with 
Mrs.  Norton,  215  ;  characteris- 
tics, 216,  262  ;  epitaph,  216  ; 
appearance,  216;  alterations  of 
his  house  at  Keir,  224  ;  mar- 
riage, 284  ;  succeeds  to  the  title 


312 


INDEX 


and  estates,  284  ;    death  of  his 

first  wife,  293  ;    marriage  with 

Mrs.  Norton,  296  ;    death,  296 
Storey's  Gate,  17  ;   alterations,  39 
"  Stuart  of  Dunleath,"  218-222 
Sugden,    Edward,   his   opposition 

to  the  Infant  Custody  Bill,  145 
Sumner,  Charles,  his  impressions 

of  Mrs.  Norton,  154 
Sutherland,  Duchess  of,  262  ;   her 

appearance,  262  ;    death,  286 
Sutherland,  Duke  of,  his  support 

of  the  Infant  Custody  Bill,  146 
Switzerland,  287 

Talfourd,  Thomas  Noon,  serjeant- 
at-law,  94  ;    his  motion  on  the 
Infant  Custody  Bill,  137,   139 
his  poetical  drama  Ion,  139 

Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  on  the  appear- 
ance of  Mrs.  Brinsley  Sheridan 
202  ;  on  the  change  in  Mrs 
Norton,  217 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  194 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  196  ;  his  lee 
tures  on  "  The  Four  Georges,' 
258 

Thellusson,  Miss,  260 

Thesiger,  Sir  Frederick,  94 

Thrupps,  their  case  against  Mr. 
Norton,  227 

Thynne,  Lord  Henry,  57 

Times,  The,  article  on  the  repeal 
of  the  Corn  Laws,  198  ;  letters 
in,  233-235  ;    notice  in,  287 

Tindal,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  93  ; 
the  Melbourne  case  tried  before, 

93 

"  To  my  Piano,"  79 

Tolstoi,  144  ;   in  London,  145 

Trelawny,  Mr.,  his  character- 
istics, 84  ;  admiration  for  Mrs. 
Norton,  84  ;  letters  from  Mrs. 
Shelley,   136 

Trollope,  Anthony,  285 

"  Twilight,"  175 

"  Undying  One,  The,"  23-26  ; 
dedication  of,  25  ;  second  edi- 
tion, 37 


lations  with  George  Norton,  75, 
yy  ;  entrusted  with  the  super- 
vision of  his  sons,  99  ;  death, 
101 

Venice,  253,  296 

Victoria,  Queen,  her  accession, 
127  ;  friendship  with  Lord  Mel- 
bourne, 127  ;  coronation,  145  ; 
her  reception  of  Mrs.  Norton, 
178  ;  grief  at  the  loss  of  Lord 
Melbourne  from  office,  179 

Victorine,  the  play,  217 

Vigny,  Alfred  de,  257 

Villiers,  Charles,  votes  in  favour 
of  the  Infant  Custody  Bill,  145 

"  Voice  from  the  Factories,"  111 

Wales,  Prince  of,  "  The  Child  of 

the  Islands  "  addressed  to,  185 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  32 
Westminster  County  Court,  trial 

in,  227-232  ;    verdict,  232 
Westmorland,  Lady,  5 
Wey,  the,  9 
Wiesbaden,  276 
"  Wife    and    Woman's    Reward, 

The,"  60,  70-75 
William  IV.,  25,  81  note  ;   holds  a 

Drawing-room,  37  ;    his  death, 

127,  139 
Williamson,   his  terra-cotta  bust 

of  Mrs.  Norton,  296 
Wilson,  Mr.,  3 
Wimbledon,  259 
Winchester,  Dean  of,  1 
Wollstonecraft,  Mary,  136 
Woman's  rights,  views  on,  149 
Wonersh,  7,  8 
Wonersh  Park,  8,  83,  91 
Wood,       Mrs.       Henry,       "  East 

Lynne,"  290 
Wordsworth,   William,    his  poem 

"  The  Last  of  the  Nortons,"  9 
Woronzow,  Catherine,  197 
Worthing,  55 

Wortley,  Lady  Emeline,  176 
Wynford,   Lord,    121  ;    his  oppo- 
sition   to   the    Infant   Custody 

Bill,  146 


Vaughan,  Miss  Margaret,  her  re-    I    York,  Frederick,  Duke  of,  2,  4 


Printed  by  Hazell,  Watson  &  Viney,  Let.,  London  and  Aylesbury,  England. 


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